Thomas Mun

Mun, Thomas (mŭn) [key], 1571–1641, English writer on economics. A merchant in Italy and the Levant, he became (1615) a director in the East India Company. In his Discourse of Trade from England unto the East Indies (1621) he refuted claims that the company reduced the amount of bullion in England by exporting too much of it to India. He further defined his theory of the balance of trade in Discourse on England's Treasure by Foreign Trade (written 1630; pub. 1664).

See E. A. J. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith: The Growth of British Economic Thought (1937).

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