Economic institutions encompassing increasingly sophisticated concepts of risk-sharing and liability flourished in Europe beginning in the High Middle Ages. These innovations occurred in an environment of fragmented local jurisdictions, not within the framework of the territorial state. In this...

pt. 1. Methodology -- pt. 2. Market performance in Babylonia and the Mediterranean in antiquity -- pt. 3. Market performance from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century -- pt. 4. Markets and money -- pt. 5. Long-term patterns -- pt. 6. Conclusion.