Acknowledgements; Introduction James D. Tracy; 1. Structural changes in European long-distance trade, and particularly in the re-export trade from south to north, 1350-1750 Herman van der Wee; 2. The growth and composition of trade in the Iberian empires, 1450-1740 Carla Rahn Phillips; 3. The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch republic before 1750 Niels Ateensgaard; 4. France, the Antilles, and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: renewals of trade Paul Butel; 5. Productivity, profitability and costs of private and corporate Dutch shipping in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Jaap R. Bruijn; 6. The Dutch and English East India Companies compared: evidence from the stock and foreign exchange markets Larry Neal; 7. World bullion flows, 1450-1800 Ward Barrett; 8. Merchant communities (1350-1750) Frederic Mauro; 9. Economic aspects of the eighteenth century Atlantic slave trade Herbert S. Klein; 10. Marginalisation, stagnation, and growth: the trans-Saharan caravan trade in the era of European expansion, 1500-1800 Ralph A. Austen; 11. The 'decline' of the central Asian caravan trade Morris Rossabi; 12. Merchant communities in pre-colonial India Irfan Habib; 13. Merchants without empire: the Hokkien sojourning communities Wang Gungwu.