Analysis of the financial revolution in England has often focused on changes in public debt management and the interest rates paid by the state. Much less is known about the evolution of the financial system providing credit to individual borrowers. We document the transition from goldsmith to...

Using 1708-1788 historical data, we test the Austrian hypothesis that fractional-reserve banking destabilizes commodity prices, complicating economic calculation and entrepreneurial planning, and contributes to boom-bust cycles. The Bank of Amsterdam (Wisselbank, 1609-1819) maintained high...

How did European merchants finance the Commercial Revolution? Established narratives highlight roles for reputation effects or the risk-sharing afforded by commenda contracts in enabling merchants to mobilize investment for long-distance trade. In contrast, this study illuminates tradeoffs...

The paper presents a conceptual framework of financial fraud based on the historical interaction of opportunity and impediment. In the long run the character of opportunity is determined by the technical characteristics of assets and their unique, unknowable or unverifiable features. Impediment...

The pivotal role played by non-banking institutions in supporting the expansion of international trade after the Napoleonic Wars and before first globalization c. 1870-1913 has long been recognised. Merchant-bankers in particular played a crucial role by advancing monies to consignors of...

The paper reconsiders the boom of the mid 1890s in which a large number of firms in the bicycle, vehicle and pneumatic tyre industries were floated. It investigates why so many of these issues featured aristocratic directors listed in their prospectuses and finds that they exemplified City...

This essay emphasizes and explicates factors and forces that led to the creation of the tulip futures market (increased globalization, a rising prosperity and middle class, etc.). It considers whether critics of that market were correct about Tulip Mania. The introductory section describes...

Dutch-Caribbean plantations attracted substantial outside funding in the 1760s. This came to an abrupt end after the 1773 credit crisis. We use one banker's detailed archives to analyze how bankers and investors were initially able to overcome asymmetric information problems, and why the system...