Dutch-Caribbean plantations attracted substantial outside funding in the 1760s. This came to an abrupt end after the 1773 credit crisis. We use one banker's detailed archives to analyze how bankers and investors were initially able to overcome asymmetric information problems, and why the system...

Do reputational concerns of financial intermediaries dampen credit booms and busts? Does this hold in the context of mortgage-backed securities? During a credit boom revolving around the securitization of West-Indian plantation-mortgages in the 1760s, high-reputation underwriters virtually...