The recent literature on craft guilds in late medieval and early modern Europe no longer considers these institutions as obstacles to the rise and expansion of capitalism. Indeed, markets, competition, social inequality, and individualism are now being viewed as characteristics of craft guilds rather than as their antitheses. Ample material is available to substantiate this perception. The enormous flexibility of such institutions, however, does not necessarily mean that the urban craft economy was a freewheeling affair, as some authors are inclined to assume. After all, such a position would suggest that craft guilds had little or no economic impact, which is hardly compatible with their centuries-long existence and with the fact that corporate regulations often instigated criticism on the part of merchants and political elites.

Determining whether and under which conditions urban craft guilds benefited the economy requires an agent-centred perspective. These institutions were set up, transformed, disbanded, re-established, and abolished through interacting groups of agents with different strategies and objectives, amid changing and unequal balances of power. Craft guilds of themselves neither impeded nor promoted economic change and growth; their effects depended on who wielded economic and institutional control, their measure of autonomy with respect to other groups, and their willingness and ability to take the initiative.