Long-run patterns in market performance in the Near East, the Mediterranean and Europe from antiquity to c. AD 1800

Market performance, which we define, following Foldvari and Van Leeuwen (Chapter 2, this volume), as the capacity of the market to absorb unexpected supply or demand shocks ¹ , is often seen as a driving force in economic development. ² Whereas some authors emphasize the connection between increasing market performance and growth in the early modern period, others have already found the presence of markets working well in the medieval world (e.g. Masschaele 1993; Galloway 2000; Clark 2002). The view that some of the medieval markets were already functioning well seems to be consistent with recent research showing that per capita income in the late medieval period was already higher than hitherto assumed (e.g. Prados de la Escosura and Álvarez-Nogal 2009; Malanima 2011; Van Zanden and Van Leeuwen 2012; Broadberry et al., 2014).