This paper investigates the informational efficiency of bond markets when investments are constrained by financial repression. To assess informational efficiency, this paper performs weak-form efficiency tests on the most liquid bond traded in Italy during the war. Surprisingly, the bond market...

This paper analyzes the historical relationship between the political coloration of the government and stock market performance in France between 1871 and 2008. The Left-wing/Right-wing dichotomy, which is ubiquitous in French political discourse, is utilized in order to build a comparative...

During crisis art is often considered as a safe haven both by the scientific literature and the financial advisors. For example, during WWII art markets encountered a massive boom in occupied countries This paper questions this vision of art as a safe investment providing evidence that art has...

By their extreme nature, repudiations rarely occur. History is therefore crucial to analyze their impact on bond prices. This paper provides an empirical study based on an original database: prices of a Tsarist bond traded in Paris before and after its repudiation by the Soviets. A structural...

Sovereign bonds are usually priced under the assumption that only the sovereign issuer may be responsible of their repayment. In some cases however, bondholders may legitimately expect to be repaid by more than one agent. For example, when a country breaks-up, successor states may agree to...

Although studies of the Paris stock exchange are quite numerous, its functioning during the Second World War has been overlooked. Based on archives from both the French brokers (Compagnie des Agents de Change) and from the occupying forces, this paper describes the market microstructure, the...

Sovereign debts are often subject to payment suspension. Default, i.e. the financial incapacity to fulfil the debt service, and repudiation, i.e. the denial by a sovereign to recognize its legal obligations, are normally used to explain these payment suspensions. Intuitively, for bondholders,...

Prices of repudiated bonds are insightful but scarcely observed. Based on an original daily database, this paper compares the price evolution from January 6, 1916 to August 31, 1919 of a cross-listed (Paris and London) Tsarist bond repudiated by the Soviets on February 8, 1918. After its...

The literature has not reached a consensus yet regarding the existence of sovereign creditor moral hazard. Exploiting an exceptional historical example, this paper proposes an original method to address this issue. As the corona which are observable only during a total eclipse of the sun,...