In this last chapter, we want to synthesize the findings of all the previous chapters on the levels and trends in market integration in India and Europe from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Based on these overall insights on the process of integration, we then return to the discussion about determinants for economic integration presented in Chapter 2 and assess which of the main factors are confirmed by the quantitative investigation. In the end, we take one further step and return to one of the main motivations for studying the process of economic integration, which is the great importance that is generally ascribed to trade and economic integration for economic development. We will thus review the various trade/integration–growth narratives and derive some general indication about their plausibility in the light of the new evidence on economic integration.

Market integration in India and Europe: a synthesis

The present book is first and foremost an attempt to improve the empirical – or quantitative – evidence on the historical process of economic integration, which features as a central variable in several large bodies of literature. A substantial amount of new price evidence has been collected for both Europe and India with the aim of assessing the efficiency of grain markets as well as the process of market integration through time.