Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/46517 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 3438
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
The medieval Champagne fairs are widely used to draw lessons about the institutional basis for long-distance impersonal exchange. This paper re-examines the causes of the outstanding success of the Champagne fairs in mediating international trade, the timing and causes of the fairs' decline, and the institutions for securing property rights and enforcing contracts at the fairs. It finds that contract enforcement at the fairs did not take the form of private-order or corporative mechanisms, but was provided by public institutions. More generally, the success and decline of the Champagne fairs depended crucially on the policies adopted by the public authorities.
Subjects: 
legal system
medieval Europe
trade
private-order institutions
community
responsibility system
JEL: 
N43
N73
O17
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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