First established during the 1830's, the Enskilda banks were characterized by unlimited liability and the right to issue bank notes. In Swedish banking history, these banks have been considered to be primitive relics. This paper utilizes new data to revise this picture. Issuing notes based on an...

The central bank’s possibility to sustain the specie standard was largely affected by both the financial development and its internationalization. The increased foreign debt denominated in foreign currencies forced the central bank to engage in more disciplinary monetary policy. The developed...

The financial market was very developed in France in the years before World War I and subsequently many newspapers provided information to investors. Yet, contemporaries blamed the inaccuracy and biases of the financial press. This study implements a quantitative test to assess this judgment....

This empirical paper investigates the path to bankruptcy for a sample of French firms in default, in particular the decision to file a petition for bankruptcy, the arbitrage between rescuing and liquidation and the effective survival. The procedure is depicted as a sequence of three steps in...