In the 18th century Britain frequently issued lottery loans, selling bonds whose sizewas determined by a draw soon after the sale. The probability distribution was perfectly known ex-ante and highly skewed. After the draw the bonds were identical (except for size) and indistinguishable from...

I examine the Neapolitan public banks, a group of non-profit institutions that emerged in the late sixteenth century, in the context of the early public banks that existed elsewhere in early modern Europe. In terms of size and stability they compare well with their peers, in spite of a difficult...

Burns and Mitchell (1946, 109) found a recession of "exceptional brevity and moderate amplitude." I confirm their judgment by examining a variety of high-frequency data. Industrial output fell sharply but rebounded within months. Retail seemed little affected and there is no evidence of...

I study the business practices of the Comédie française, the main theater in Paris, between 1680 and 1793. The theater was an actors' partnership and operated within a (contested) oligopoly. Newly available data provide revenues by price category for over 32,000 performances. Attendance varied...