Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2009
The relative dynamism of English and Scottish foreign trade from 1675 to 1775 can largely be explained by the interrelated phenomena of the growing domestic demand for American and Asian consumer goods and North European raw materials; the growing market in northern and western Europe for re-exports of American and Asian consumables; and the growing protected market for British manufactures in the American colonies and Africa. Trade growth depended on development of a wide variety of credit practices, supported primarily by big wholesalers and export merchants. Wholesalers and merchants also accounted for important institutional innovations.
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