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Cities of Commerce develops a model of institutional change in European commerce based on urban rivalry. Cities continuously competed with each other by adapting commercial, legal, and financial institutions to the evolving needs of merchants. Oscar Gelderblom traces the successive rise of Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam to commercial primacy between 1250 and 1650, showing how dominant cities feared being displaced by challengers while lesser cities sought to keep up by cultivating policies favorable to trade. He argues that it was this competitive urban network that promoted open-access institutions in the Low Countries, and emphasizes the central role played by the urban power holders--the magistrates--in fostering these inclusive institutional arrangements. Gelderblom describes how the city fathers resisted the predatory or reckless actions of their territorial rulers, and how their nonrestrictive approach to commercial life succeeded in attracting merchants from all over Europe. Cities of Commerce intervenes in an important debate on the growth of trade in Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Challenging influential theories that attribute this commercial expansion to the political strength of merchants, this book demonstrates how urban rivalry fostered the creation of open-access institutions in international trade.

El artículo trata sobre la apertura del estrecho de Gibraltar y el establecimiento de una nueva vía de comercio entre el Mediterráneo y el Canal de la Mancha. Es una revisión historiográfica sobre el comercio marítimo en las costas occidentales de Europa entre los siglos XIII y XIV a través de un análisis articulado en torno a medios de transporte, mercados y mercancías. Además, estudia el papel de los operadores en el desarrollo de esta ruta comercial y el impacto de la misma sobre el declive de las Ferias de Champaña y las navegaciones oceánicas.     The article discusses the opening of the Straights of Gibraltar and the  establishment of a new trade route between the Mediterranean and the English Channel. This article re-examines the scholarship on the maritime trade along the Western European coastlines in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries based on an analysis of the means of transportation, markets and goods. Furthermore, this study examines the role of merchants in the development of the trade route and its effects on the decline of the Champagne fairs and oceanic navigation.

Centuries before the emergence of today's CCPs, humans developed techniques that would become part of the practice of clearing trades. Archaeological discoveries suggest the first futures and options were traded around 1750 BC in the ancient city states of Mesopotamia. It was in London that clearing at a clearing house became an everyday event. Other clearing houses sprang up in regional cities in the UK to clear cheques and payments. Drawing on the London experience, The New York Clearing House Association was set up in October 1853 to bring order to chaotic payment and settlement procedures among the city's 57 banks. This chapter discusses the history of the emergence of clearing houses and their spread in Britain and many European countries. However, in the often difficult boom and bust conditions of the late 19th century, anti‐gambling sentiment posed problems for nascent futures markets and their clearing houses in many European countries.

Party goers will revel in the final hours of 2013 with plenty of festive food, drinks and live music all capped off with a champagne toast at midnight and front row seat to the Space Needle's iconic New Year's Eve fireworks display.