Institutions, social capital and economic development

Abstract

Merchant guilds are one of the most widespread and long-lasting economic institutions in European history. Their roots reach back to Greek and Roman antiquity, there are persistent indications of their survival through the centuries after the collapse of the western Roman empire, and as soon as documentary sources become richer after c. 1000, they can be found in every European economy during the Middle Ages. Local merchant guilds were formed in most medieval European towns, and alien merchant guilds and hanses were formed by many traders operating abroad in foreign lands. Although traditional medieval-style merchant guilds weakened in the Low Countries and England after about 1500, they survived elsewhere into the early modern era, enduring in some societies – particularly in Italy, Iberia and Germany – well into the eighteenth century. In many parts of Europe between c. 1500 and c. 1800, guild-like merchant associations also formed in new sectors such as the proto-industrial trades. Spain exported its institutions to its overseas empire, and merchant consulados survived in many Spanish American economies until the nineteenth century. And between c. 1500 and c. 1800 every European state, including England and the Netherlands, formed privileged merchant companies which, for better or worse, became the standard-bearers of European globalization.