In this paper we survey the development of lending of last resort operations in the mid-19th century. We identify and document critical dimensions of the extension of lending of last resort functions, and also develop original empirical tests enabling us to identify such things as the emergence...

We measure the degree of financial integration among the top five financial centers of mid-19th-century Europe by applying threshold-regression analysis to a new database of exchange rates and bullion prices. We find that, instead of London, Hamburg, Frankfurt or Amsterdam, it was Paris that...

This paper presents a detailed analysis of how liquid money market instruments – sterling bills of exchange – were produced during the first globalisation. We rely on a unique data set that reports systematic information on all 23,493 bills re-discounted by the Bank of England in the year...

We describe how the structure and governance of international trade finance – the oldest domain of international finance – evolved from the Middle Ages until today. Trade finance products initially consisted of idiosyncratic assets issued by local merchants and bankers. The financing of...

The collapse of Overend Gurney and the ensuing Crisis of 1866 was a turning point in British financial history. The achievement of relative stability was due to the Bank of England's willingness to offer generous assistance to the market in a crisis, combined with an elaborate system for...

Money market structures shape monetary policy design, but the way central banks perform their operations also has an impact on the evolution of money markets. This is important, because microeconomic differences in the way the same macroeconomic policy is implemented may be non-neutral. In this...

This paper analyses the monetary policy of the Most Serene Republic of Venice in the years of calamities using a modern equivalent of helicopter money, namely an extraordinary issue of (base) money, coupled with capital losses for the issuer. We treat the 1629 famine and the 1630-1631 plague as...

This book is the first complete survey of the evolution of monetary institutions and practices in Western countries from the Middle Ages to today. It radically rethinks previous attempts at a history of monetary institutions by avoiding institutional approach and shifting the focus away from the...