I use the global crisis of 1914 as a window onto the phenomenon of investor reaction to complex news — such as sudden political upheaval. Based on a novel database of all stocks traded on the NYSE during 1914, along with “real-time” news accounts from major newspapers, I show that NYSE...

Identifying market crashes can be problematic. In a stable financial environment, the same price variation in percentage will result in greater negative impact than during a highly volatile period.In order to take into account changes of volatility throughout time, a new method is proposed, one...

This paper revisits what we know about the risk of stocks thanks to a non-US long term database. French stock market risk observed over the last 150 years, presents a long-term rise. Despite peace and economic stability, market risk has never converged to levels seen pre-1914. Reversely, the...

Research in this article traces the origins of a process of competitive change in British retail financial markets by looking at the emergence of cash dispensers technology, how it transformed into Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and how proprietary ATM networks gave way to total...

Dividend policy is not set de novo each year, but dividends are smoothed from one year to another. This smoothing leads to a short-term persistence in dividend policy. In this paper, we investigate the persistence of a dividend policy in the long run by using a unique sample of firms listed on...

This paper analyses the evolution of the safety and soundness of the European banking sector during the various stages of the Basel process of capital regulation. In the first part we document the evolution of various measures of systemic risk as the Basel process unfolds. Most strikingly, we...

Even though the primary function of deposit guarantee schemes (DGSs) is to serve as ‘paybox' for bank depositors, provide protection to retail depositors, act as a buffer in the event of a banking crisis and contribute to safeguarding the stability of the banking system, DGSs' financial means...

The objective of this chapter is to show that the focus of modern corporate law theory on the concerns of shareholders is historically and geographically contingent. In doing so, it traces shareholder-stakeholder debates through the 20th century. The most obvious example is the simple...

Sovereign governments often discriminate between creditors during debt default episodes. This paper explores how expectations of selective default affect sovereign bond trading and sovereign risk premia based on a historical laboratory: the German external default of the 1930s. We exploit a...