This paper employs a unique, hand-collected dataset of exchange rates for five major currencies (the lira of Barcelona, the pound sterling of England, the pond groot of Flanders, the florin of Florence and the livre tournois of France) to consider whether the law of one price and purchasing...

The limited partnership emerged as a key societal innovation during the early modern age. It allowed an effective separation between partners – those acting and those conferring capital – and it granted limited liability to partners in case of insolvency. The diffusion of limited partnership...

Drawing on a new data set of monthly observations, this paper investigates similarities and differences in the discount rate policy of 12 European countries under the Classical Gold Standard. It asks, in particular, whether the bank rate policy followed different patterns in core and peripheral...

The Mississippi Bubble, South Sea Bubble and the Dutch Windhandel of 1720 together represent the world's first global financial bubble. We hand-collect cross-sectional price data and investor account data from 1720 to test theories about market bubbles. Our tests suggest that innovation was a...

This paper examines whether improved geographical access to the central bank contributed to local credit development in France during the Belle Époque (1880–1913). I use a new data set of credit by administrative area (département) in order to test the effect of the Bank of France network of...

We point out that the two and half years of negotiation (1692-1694) between a group of investors and the English government, who led to the establishment of the Bank of England, aimed to guarantee the liquidity of a new public debt and not to establish a bank. We analyze the evolution of the...

This article analyzes the stability of bimetallism for countries operating in integrated bullion markets who enact different legal ratios. I articulate a new theoretical framework to demonstrate that two countries can both be bimetallic only if they coordinate their legal ratios. The theoretical...

Coinage debasement in medieval and early modern Europe remains an ill-understood topic; and indeed an often cited article ("The Debasement Puzzle": Velde and Weber, 1996) sought to demonstrate that coinage debasements were both impractical and economically futile. The purpose of this study is to...

Revisionist estimates of growth rates during the British industrial revolution, though largely successful in presenting a more modest picture of Britain's ‘take-off’ prior to the 1830s, have also posed fresh analytical difficulties for champions of the new economic history. If...

This article deals with the evolution of the Italian economy in the last part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century with particular emphasis on money and banking. It also deals with the problem of the huge Italian public debt. In this context it examines the...