Early Evidence of “Finance for Normal People” in the First Era of Globalization

Abstract

In this paper, we unearth a forgotten study of Pierre Des Essars, the director of research at the Banque de France in the late 19th century, enriched with comments from contemporary financial analysts. Des Essars provides the first and only existing example of the actual composition of French individual portfolios during the Belle Époque. By revisiting what is generally taught, our analyses show that many of the intuitions of “finance for normal people” were already present in the financial analysts' writings during the Belle Époque. Specifically, we show in an unprecedented way that these writings prefigure behavioral portfolio theory word for word a century before its emergence. In addition, our findings highlight that this popular science of investment was born from observations of individual portfolios and the objective of providing financial education for the masses. Finally, we reveal strong invariants in the construction of behavioral finance versus standard finance a century apart.