This paper aims at giving an explanation of the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We firstly study the evolution of the French insolvency law and then we introduce some regional aspects. We indeed observe that the...

We show that the size of the public debt, the budget deficit and the monetary overhang made it impossible for France to stabilize its price level and return to the pre-war parity immediately after World War I, even on the anti-keynesian assumption that a stabilization would not have had any...

Stock market indices are today a vital and daily tool for both economists and actors in the financial world. The multiplication and the very importance given to these indices raise the question of their accuracy and of the reliability of the methods that are used to construct them. We begin an...

This paper aims at giving an explanation of the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We wonder in particular whether changes in bankruptcy law, which are substantial during the period, suffice to explain the rise in the...

We analyze a new blue chips (large caps) stock index for France from 1854 to 1998. We detail its methodology and show that it differs profoundly from earlier indices, and that it is more consistent with the French financial and economic history. We suggest this result casts some doubt on many...

Ce papier constitue le septième chapitre de l'Histoire du marché financier français au 19 ème siècle (à paraître en janvier 2007, publications de la Sorbonne). Dans ce chapitre, nous étudions les transformations profondes qui touchent le système bancaire au milieu du 19 ème siècle et...

This paper is the eleventh chapter of a book forthcoming in January 2007 under the title Histoire du marché financier français au 19 ème siècle (a history of the French capital market in the 19th century). He discusses the macroeconomics of the great depression of the late 19th century from...