This article organizes an economic analysis of the effects of colonial rule on capital market access and development. Our insights provide an interpretation of institutional variance and growth performance across British colonies. We emphasize the degree of coercion available to British...

According to a Keynesian view, short term output fluctuations are normally demand side led. Since prices reflect demand, they should mirror output fluctuations. Thus, prices and output are expected to move in the same direction in the short run. The present paper investigates the historical...

Using a new database for the late nineteenth century, when the pound sterling was the world's leading international currency, this article provides evidence on the empirical determinants of international currency status. We report evidence in favour of the search-theoretic models to...

This paper discusses the existence of 'home' biases in the 19th century global capital market, whereby colonies appear to have received a 'disproportionate' amount of capital from their metropolis. Starting from a discussion of the Bulow Rogoff (1989) problem, we argue that imperial links...

In this Paper we focus on the different historical regime experiences of the core and the periphery. Using conventional Feldstein-Horioka tests, but taking a more careful look at the panel properties of our sample, this Paper reports results which are consistent with the ‘Folk’ wisdom that...

The high level of trade and financial integration reached by Europe both today and under the late 19th century gold standard suggests that important lessons can be learned by looking at past record to inform current issues. In this article, we draw a fresh picture of the European gold standard,...

In this paper we consider a regime where several target zones coexist. Parities are defended by manipulating money supplies in participating countries. As a result, interventions aimed at one given exchange rate influence other exchange rates as well. Such ‘externalities’ are shown to have...

In this article, we study Europe's monetary geography on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Our unit of analysis is the city and we explore inter-city linkages. Important findings include a considerable degree of integration and multilateralism with monetary centers having already emerged as...