In this paper, we study how the birth of the first universities in Italy affected the emergence of the Italian free cities-states (the commune) in the period 1000-1300 a.d. Exploiting a panel dataset of 121 cities, we show that after the foundation of a new university the distance between each...

Finance in the Middle Ages and the Scholastic tradition -- Credit and faith in medieval Iberia : the road not taken -- Early European finance 1050-1650 -- Transcending feudal finance in Western Europe -- Mercantile credit and the Atlantic slave trade -- Chayanov, Marx, and hidden interests in...

The origin of markets is a central issue in economics and economic history, but until now there has been no definitive reference source on the subject. This authoritative collection fills the gap by reprinting key papers analysing the evolution of markets over the past millennium. These papers,...