CANTILLON, ESPAÇO E TEORIA ECONÔMICA

Abstract

The paper sketches the economic geography underneath the Essay on theNature of Commerce in General, and attempts to connect the geographical and thetheoretical arguments within Cantillon's system. The main conclusions are: a) Cantillon's social structure scheme presents a first draft of the urban network, which ranks the urban nuclei according to landowner's economic and non-economic decisions; b) the transportation costs are a central element of the monetary theory and of the pricemaking model; c) the transportation costs affect the specie flow mechanism, which governs international trade. In spite of the Essay's advanced approach to the market process and to the circulation process, Cantillon's locational analysis is limited by the framework of his agricultural and natural vision of the economic system.