Starting from historiographical disputes, this study aims at comparing the economic progress of the Romanian Principalities / Romania and Bessarabia, as part of the Russian Empire, based on an analysis of the evolution of commercial institutions. We ascertain that institutional advantages offered to Bessarabia, after its annexation to the Russian Empire in 1812, surpassed those existing in the Romanian Principalities only in the first half of the 19th century. With the Union of the Romanian Principalities and the formation of Modern Romania, and especially after the gaining of independence in 1878, no real institutional advantages in trade favoured Bessarabia, which, in many respects, even remained behind.