In 2007, both the U.S. and the E.U. implemented sweeping reforms in the regulation of stock exchange trading and market structure, following diametrically opposite approaches. While the E.U. effort is deregulatory and decentralized, allowing investors' choices to determine how different...

Much of the discussion about banking and commerce in America has failed to make several crucial distinctions and has not accounted for many arrangements that have promoted the mixing of these activities. We investigate the history of banking and commerce in the United States, looking both at...

This paper presents unique evidence on financial market expectations during the monetary regime uncertainty of the 1870s. The analysis incorporates quantitative evidence from the option market as well as qualitative evidence from the contemporary financial press. Credibility of monetary policy...

Part B. of the paper compares the basic concepts of shareholder control in Anglo-America and some states of Continental Europe. It introduces a new categorization between Implicit and Explicit Systems of Corporate Control. The first category refers to statutes that are enacted and construed with...

This paper studies the rise and fall of fraternal life insurance in the decades surrounding 1900. It shows that the rise of the fraternal life insurer took place while it was exempt from the solvency regulations that governed other insurance companies, and its fade into obscurity followed soon...

This paper analyzes asset pricing behavior during the period leading up to the Crisis of 1873. Evidence is presented that equities, options, and bonds priced risks consistently, suggestingthat investors were actively monitoring the risk of investing and were not caught up in an irrational,...

Much of the discussion about banking and commerce in America has failed to make several crucial distinctions and has not accounted for many arrangements that have promoted the mixing of these activities. We investigate the history of banking and commerce in the United States, looking both at...

The diversity of voting rules in today's corporations indicates that power is distributed among shareholders in a great variety of ways, but current theories of the corporation have little to say about this diversity. For insight into the significance of different ways of distributing power...

In this age of Enron and WorldCom it may be hard to fathom the notion of successful, robust capital markets without extensive government regulation. Yet the 19th century New York capital markets offer a striking picture of success despite the aura of Robber Baron buccaneering. This article will...