We study equity markets between 1900 and 1925 to provide a pure out-of-sample test of three major asset pricing anomalies: momentum, long-term reversal, and size. We find strong evidence of momentum in almost every market. Momentum is a local phenomenon, as the returns of momentum long-short...

We study technology diffusion mechanisms using a unique historical setting: the introduction of the cyanide method of gold extraction on the Witwatersrand goldfields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mines managed by the same mining house were more likely to adopt the new process, which...

The article is based on a unique data set of securities traded on the Madrid <italic>Bolsa</italic> and the Zurich <italic>Börse</italic> between 1902 and 1925. We examine the pricing of liquidity and demonstrate that the liquidity level of securities was an important determinant of cross-sectional returns. Factors that are...

We obtain daily data for warrants traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange between 1909 and 1922, and for a broker's call option quotes on stocks from 1908 to 1911. We use this new data set to test how close derivative prices are to <link rid="b3">Black-Scholes (1973)</link> prices and to compute profits for...

The German firm of Siemens and Halske introduced many enterprising features of what later came to be known as welfare capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century. Profit sharing, annual bonuses, a pension fund, a reduction in work hours, and an annual party were all means to ensure a productive,...

We study nine equity markets between 1900 and 1925 to provide an out-of-sample test of three major asset pricing anomalies, momentum, long-term reversal, and size, in a period when anomalies were not yet known. We find strong evidence of momentum in almost every market. We find no evidence of...