ECONOMICS:

Trade was very important to the Mongols because they could do things like clothes from the horses fur or the goats too. It's learning how to create and manage the institutions and infrastructure required to function effectively in a market economy. The new knowledge and technical skills that are required by it's developing. Another thing is that it's learning how to build effective trading relationships with foreign markets, and protecting against he negative side-effects of market driven economic activity and its tendency to leave some people out of its benefits. [sic]

-excerpt from research paper on the Mongol Empire