In this paper, we measure TFP losses in China's non-agricultural economy associated with labour and capital misallocation across provinces and sectors between 1985-2007. We also decompose the overall loss into factor market distortions within provinces (between state and non-state sectors) and...

At first sight a marked difference turns out among the Italian governments of early Renaissance: the means of financing their deficit. There are, on the one hand, communal cities and republics, raising money from citizens through the system of forced or voluntary loans; there are, on the other,...

The Spanish Second Republic was a unique experiment of democratization in interwar Spain, which was characterized by extreme levels of political uncertainty. In response to this uncertainty, we find that investors sold stocks in favor of government bonds. In fact, political uncertainty had a...

Mutual funds emerged as early as the second half of the 18th century in The Netherlands. The paper traces the history of mutual funds from the development of securitization in the 17th century to the invention of depository receipts in the 19th century. The apparent motivation for organizing the...

In 1836, Société Générale created the world's first closed-end equity fund, Mutualité Industrielle. It promised to be a diversification tool targeted towards less-wealthy investors. We confirm that the trust's returns were indeed better than returns on synthetic portfolios such investors...

This study wanted to pinpoint the different securities transactions’ channels in France, which are quite specific compared to other countries.As a matter of fact, the Paris Bourse could not be well explained without the free market and the deposit banks'transactions. This organisation leads to...

At first sight a marked difference turns out among the Italian governments of early Renaissance: the means of financing their deficit. There are, on the one hand, communal cities and republics, raising money from citizens through the system of forced or voluntary loans; there are, on the other,...

This paper argues that the ability to keep innovations secret may be a key determinant of patenting. To test this hypothesis, the paper examines a newly-collected data set of more than 7,000 American and British innovations at four world's fairs between 1851 and 1915. Exhibition data show that...

This article reviews the first English edition of Prof. Jesús Huerta de Soto´s book `Dinero, Crédito Bancario y Ciclos Económicos´ which first appeared in Spain in 1998.