We provide a comparison of salient organizational features of primary markets for foreign government debt over the very long run. We focus on output, quality control, information provision, competition, pricing, charging and signaling. We find that the market set up experienced a radical...

This paper covers the long-term evolution of the primary market for foreign government debt. We discuss the role of financial intermediaries as underwriters and distributors of securities, providers of information, and lending of last resort services since the early 19th century, and the...

During the 1930s, rating agencies took up a central role in regulatory supervision that they still have today. The proximate cause for this changeover was the economic shock of the Great Depression. Exploring the performance of rating agencies in assessing the risks of sovereign debt, an...