the economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances, which a government should encourage by means of protectionism.
Mercantilism was a set of economic practices adopted by European nations between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, in the context of the Great Navigations, which mark the transition between the feudal production model and the capitalist production model. The main features of mercantilism were the favorable trade balance (export rather than import) and <u>metalism, which is the idea of accumulating as much precious metal as possible, since this was considered an indicator of a nation's wealth.
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