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# Agricultural Market Access Gradient

## Definition

The variation in market accessibility between different locations based on proximity to trade routes, navigable waterways, and institutional barriers, which Smith argues created systematic economic advantages for certain regions while disadvantaging others in medieval Europe.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 2

## Context

Smith uses this concept to explain regional economic disparities, showing how geographical advantages combined with institutional restrictions to create a hierarchy of market access that determined which regions could develop commercially and which remained trapped in subsistence agriculture.

## Economic Domain

Exchange

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