The sources of finance for industrial development include (i) banks, (ii) securities markets, (iii) internal finance, (iv) alternative sources of finance such as angel finance, trade credit, families, and friends, and (v) governments. All four countries had sophisticated financial systems and...

Banks need to keep both capital and liquidity against unforeseen events.During the early-mid nineteenth century, there were a number of banking crises. Banks responded by holding higher levels of capital.An analysis of bank capital shows that they adjusted their capital ratios according to the...

In this paper we examine foreign investment in the UK – a perhaps puzzling, even paradoxical, issue to explore, since the UK is itself, even before adjusting for the size of the British economy, one of the world's biggest overseas investors. This, we would conjecture, may go a long way to...

Governance: What and Why?Corporate governance was discussed before the financial crises of earlier this century, but attention to it has increased dramatically since that crisis. What is governance, and why did it suddenly become so interesting?The Oxford English Dictionary gives a comprehensive...

Swathes of complex capital regulation have made banking riskierExecutive summary:Banks need to keep both capital and liquidity against unforeseen events.During the early-mid nineteenth century, there were a number of banking crises. Banks responded by holding higher levels of capital.An analysis...

A proper understanding of the term lender-of-last-resort shows that there can be no international version. After outlining the nature of financial crises, the lender-of-last-resort is defined, and its origins traced in the history of thought and in British experience in the nineteenth century. A...