What would merfolk economies look like?

This is a world with underwater merfolks and other humanoids. They have opposable thumbs, so they can use tools humans can use. Lets assume there's different subspecies and races of these merfolks, so they have very different dietary needs. They have human level intelligence. They cannot get goods from land themselves.

What would their trade center around? What commodities are important to sustain the population and increase productivity? What services would be important that we don't have on land?

Edit: The technological level would be very medieval and agricultural. Cities, but still a lot of foragers in the rural parts. The species is very multicultural, but most of the societies are aristocratic city states or empires. There's cities with more than 10 000 people, but these are rare power centers in the region.

They can dive to a depth of 500 meters without trouble.

posted over 7 years ago

pimmen‭

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