The cross-section of average annual returns on German common stock in the period of 1881-1913 exhibits several of the patterns that have been observed in more recent U.S. data. Market beta is hardly important, and its explanatory power is swamped by size and the ratio of book value to market...

By studying the German universal banking system in the pre-World War I period, in comparison with its American and British counterparts, this paper investigates whether universality (the combination of commercial and investment banking services) influences banking industry concentration, levels...

This article poses three main questions: Does the civil-law tradition favor large, concentrated, universal banking systems? Does this sort of legal system work against the development of active securities markets? Do powerful universal banks (whether or not legal tradition lies at the root of...

Despite reputedly widespread market manipulation and insider trading, we find surprisingly high liquidity and low transactions costs for actively traded securities on the NYSE between 1890 and 1910, decades before SEC regulation. Moreover, market makers behave largely as predicted in theory:...

US agricultural economic growth in this century has been characterized by a slow rise in the demand for food and faster growth in farm output as against nonfarm productivity. In such an environment, one expects the size of the farm sector to decline as a share of the rest of the economy. What is...

This paper elucidates the key debates surrounding the optimal design of financial systems and institutions: bank-based versus market-based; universal versus specialized banking; relationship versus arms-length banking. The paper also examines the historical pattern of financial system...

Investment banking taken generally to mean the financing of long-term capital needs, came into being with the merchants of medieval trade routes. In almost all developed economies of the world, even those developing late in the 19th century, investment bankers emerged from merchant roots. The...