In this paper I combine long multi-country time series data for interest rates and stock returns with the institutional evidence for much earlier centuries amassed by economic historians to study the question of financial globalization and how it has altered since the late classical era. At...

This paper attempts to define financial globalization as a process whereby financial markets internationally are integrated so closely that they can be considered as a single market. The process, viewed as a by- product of financial liberalization, is only a necessary condition for financial...

We consider the operation of international capital markets in two periods of globalization, before 1914 and after 1971, with a focus on the crisis problem. We explore the idea that the incidence of crises in these two periods reflects how capital flows were embedded in the larger economic...

This paper assesses whether the international monetary system is already tri-polar and centred around the US dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). It focuses on what we call China’s" dominance hypothesis", i.e. whether the renminbi is already the dominant currency in Asia, exerting...

This article looks at the hitherto little-studied transatlantic cooperation between central and commercial banks after the "Nixon shock" of August 1971 and investigates the specific areas and dimensions of their interactions. Using the example of Deutsche Bank and its board member Alfred...

This article looks at the hitherto little-studied transatlantic cooperation between central and commercial banks after the "Nixon shock" of August 1971 and investigates the specific areas and dimensions of their interactions. Using the example of Deutsche Bank and its board member Alfred...

The long history of sovereign debt and the associated enforcement problem have attracted researchers in many fields. In this paper, we survey empirical work by economists, historians, and political scientists. As we review the empirical literature, we emphasize parallel developments in the...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in equity...

Episodes of debt accumulation have been a recurrent feature of the global economy over the past fifty years. Since 2010, emerging and developing economies have experienced another wave of historically large and rapid debt accumulation. Similar past debt buildups have often ended in widespread...

This paper offers a theory of conditionality lending in 19th-century international capital markets. We argue that ownership of reputation signals by prestigious banks rendered them able and willing to monitor government borrowing. Monitoring was a source of rent, and it led bankers to support...