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# Fairs and Markets

## Definition

Institutional arrangements for the periodic assembly of buyers and sellers in designated locations with exclusive trading privileges, representing early forms of market organization that Smith argues restricted rather than facilitated agricultural commerce.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 2

## Context

Smith includes these market privileges among the regulatory barriers that hindered agricultural development in medieval Europe, arguing they created artificial constraints on when and where farm produce could be traded rather than allowing the natural development of continuous market relationships.

## Economic Domain

Regulation

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