Abstract:
The paper outlines the economic geography underlying the Essay on the nature of commerce in general, and discusses the extent to which it relates to the theoretical arguments within Cantillon's system. The main conclusions are: a) Cantillon's social structure scheme presents a first draft of urban networks, ranked according to the economic and non-economic decisions of the property owners; b) transportation costs are a central element of the Essay's monetary theory and of its price making model; and c) transportation costs affect the specie flow mechanism, which governs international trade. In spite of the Essay's advanced approach to the market and money circulation processes, Cantillon's locational analysis is in many aspects limited by an agricultural and naturalist vision of the economic system.
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