Import-Export Activities of Italy ca. 1400 -- Some Economic and Accounting Considerations

Economists have traditionally classified a nation's tract into internal and external transactions. Both types of transactions are important to the business historian. The nature of economic development for a nation is influenced by many factors, including climate, arable land, water power, natural resources, and the educational and training level of its citizens. Import-export transactions have been vital to the attempts of individuals and nations to satisfy economic wants more completely. The early civilizations of the Near East engaged actively in import-export transactions. Professor W. B. McBride has identified and described the extent and degree of sophistication of such transactions in early Mesopotamia [9]. He found a surprising level of managerial techniques were applied in the individual transactions that constituted the external commerce of that period. He noted basic concepts of transaction recording that were expanded and refined during additional centuries of human activity until they culminated in the full-fledged development known as "double-entry bookkeeping" which appeared in the 13th and 14th centuries in northern Italy. Although commercial transactions within a particular nation required a certain facilitating accounting theory and generally accepted social structure, import-export activity transactions clearly placed certain other strains or requirements on the existing commercial structure. The ability to convert or equal foreign currencies and the creation of credit instruments and terms are exam-