The financial market was well developed in France in the years before World War I, and there were many newspapers that provided information to investors. Yet commentators at the time faulted the financial press for inaccuracy and biases, which they linked to the existence of payments made by...

This article provides a new perspective on the interwar foreign debt crisis by analysing original data on the credit ratings, market yields and subsequent performance of government borrowers in the New York market. We focus on the four agencies that are known to have been operating at the time...

This article organizes an economic analysis of the effects of colonial rule on capital market access and development. Our insights provide an interpretation of institutional variance and growth performance across British colonies. We emphasize the degree of coercion available to British...

This paper offers a theory of conditionality lending in nineteenth-century international capital markets. We argue that ownership of reputation signals by prestigious banks rendered them able and willing to monitor government borrowing. Monitoring was a source of rent, and it led bankers to...