This paper identifies a sharp decline in the volatility of consol prices after the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. The volatility of consol returns drops by more than half after 1815 and our empirical testing confirms a long period of remarkable stability that includes the entire Victorian...

Although it has been well established that financial volatility is related to news and macroeconomic shocks, there has been less emphasis on the importance of underlying economic and political stability. In this paper we study the behavior of consol returns since 1729 and identify a...

Two series of German bonds, issued in 1924 and 1930, traded on the London Stock Exchange throughout Hitler's 1933-1945 regime in Germany. We isolate both structural breaks and turning points in these bond series. Major turning points follow Hitler's reintroduction of conscription in 1935, the...

The People's Republic of China introduced indexed government bonds in the face of the inflation panic of 1988-1989 and re-introduced them when inflation surged upward again in 1993. Measures of inflation expectations--as derived from the trading prices of these indexed bonds--suggest that the...

This paper identifies a sharp decline in the volatility of consol prices after the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. The volatility of consol returns drops by more than half after 1815 and our empirical testing confirms a long period of remarkable stability that includes the entire Victorian...

Two series of German bonds, issued in 1924 and 1930, traded on the London Stock Exchange throughout Hitler's 1933-45 regime in Germany. We isolate both structural breaks and turning points in these bond series. Major turning points follow Hider's reintroduction of conscription in 1935, the...