The first ones, in the late Middle Ages, specialised in commercial news, mainly from abroad.

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But it has some important exceptions: Even in the late middle ages, the theologians-cum-proto-economists realized that the arbitrage effect is net of transportation costs.

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One should not downplay the importance of literacy, too, as the printing press and the ability to mass-produce cheap paper ignited an explosion in publishing throughout Europe in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

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Paradigm shifts like the rise of the corporation in the late Middle Ages, paper money, free labor and central banking, among many others, all came about as a response to particular political, social and technological pressures, needs, and problems.

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Robert Irwin, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, says the stories were written to entertain in normal, conversational Arabic of the late Middle Ages - and were aimed at the tradesmen and the lower-middle classes.

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