Financial History Review最新文献

{"title":"Supervisors against regulation? The Basel Committee and country risk before the International Debt Crisis (1976–1982)","authors":"Alexis Drach","doi":"10.1017/S0968565020000050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565020000050","url":null,"abstract":"While the International Debt Crisis of the early 1980s was the most severe financial crisis since World War II and while national and international banking supervision was developing at that time, little is known about the response of supervisors to the deteriorating financial environment in the years preceding the crisis. Complementing the political and business history of the international debt situation, this article aims to unravel the international banking supervision side of the question. Based on archival material from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and various central banks, the article examines how the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), then emerging as the leading forum on international banking supervision, anticipated the International Debt Crisis through the prism of ‘country risk’. The article shows that the Committee refused to recommend strict regulations in this area. It argues that members adopted this position because of the lack of good information and the difficult position of banking supervision between macroeconomic issues and individual banks’ own responsibilities, but also because of somewhat excessive faith in market mechanisms. Their discussions on country risk shed light on critical challenges of banking supervision and, thereby, on the history of banking regulation and prudential thinking.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"210 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0968565020000050","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49575227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Surge, retraction and prices: the performance of fiat coins in Sweden, c. 1715–1720","authors":"Peter Ericsson, Patrik Winton","doi":"10.1017/S0968565020000049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565020000049","url":null,"abstract":"From 1716 to 1718, Sweden experienced a shock of liquidity when the absolutist regime of Charles XII issued large amounts of fiat coins (mynttecken) in order to finance the Great Northern War. After the death of the king in November 1718, the new parliamentary regime decided to partially default on the coins. In international literature, this episode is largely unknown, and in Swedish historiography, scholars have often claimed that the country's currency collapsed in hyperinflation. We assess the performance of the new coins by studying how prices of commodities in various geographic locations developed. We also study bookkeeping practices in order to see how accountants treated the new coins. Our results show that there was a complex relationship between prices and liquidity. Prices of products in high demand by the military increased more than other prices. Accountants did not treat mynttecken and other currencies differently in 1718. It was only after the death of the king that accountants started to differentiate between different types of coins. The value of the fiat coins was linked to the actions and the legitimacy of the royal regime, which is in line with the State theory of money.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"256 - 282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0968565020000049","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42229727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The origins of the Asia dollar market 1968–1986: regulatory competition and complementarity in Singapore and Hong Kong","authors":"C. Schenk","doi":"10.1017/S0968565019000271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565019000271","url":null,"abstract":"Offshore financial centres have attracted considerable critical attention over the past few decades as havens for lightly taxed funds that circulate outside the regulatory oversight of major financial centres. This article addresses the emergence of an offshore market in US dollars in Singapore from the late 1960s using a range of archival sources to identify the motivations of the host, participant banks and regional rivals. The development of the Asia dollar market is particularly striking because Singapore was not the most likely venue for an Asian offshore financial centre. The main regional financial centre was Hong Kong, but the Hong Kong authorities made a deliberate choice not to host an offshore market in Hong Kong, a decision that was initially supported both by the state and by incumbent banks, although the banks later changed their view as the Singapore market grew. This case thus opens up discussion of the influence market actors exert over regulators when they are engaged in regulatory arbitrage as well as regulatory competition between states. Evidence is also presented about the efforts of the Bank for International Settlements to encourage greater transparency in offshore financial centres in the 1980s.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"17 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0968565019000271","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46570884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"FHR volume 27 issue 1 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0968565020000025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0968565020000025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":" ","pages":"f1 - f2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s0968565020000025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42224635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"FHR volume 27 issue 1 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0968565020000037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0968565020000037","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"b1 - b2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s0968565020000037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42392923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tracking the growth of government securities investing in early modern England and Wales","authors":"C. Shammas","doi":"10.1017/S096856501900026X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S096856501900026X","url":null,"abstract":"Interest in the growth of tradeable securities in early modern Britain, especially its relationship to economic development and the funding of government debt, has centered mainly on the borrower – whether it be trading company, industrial enterprise, or the state. This article directs attention to the investor, using Charity Commission Reports for England and Wales that document a dramatic mid-eighteenth-century shift by donors and trustees from investments in real estate and rent charges to perpetual government annuities, mainly 3 percent Consols. The heavy investment in this public debt product is what ultimately prompted the creation of the London Stock Exchange in 1801. In analyzing this shift, which occurred among the propertied in all regions of the nation, not just the metropolis or among corporate entities and the mercantile community, I consider both what made the annuities increasingly attractive for charitable trusts and the alternatives – real estate and private loans secured by mortgage or other means – more problematic. Legal changes, I argue, played a role in the transformation, especially the Charitable Uses Act of 1736, which made charitable devises of real estate very difficult and probably resulted in reduced investment in human capital and less wealth redistribution. Regions varied, however, in the degree to which they switched from real estate in the latter part of the eighteenth century; they also differed in the extent to which the switch resulted in more gifts of interest-bearing loans as well. Admittedly, the changes documented in this article concern only one type of depository for assets, charitable trusts. The appeal of these annuities, however, could extend to investments needed for other purposes such as postmortem payments to dependents. Moreover, the fall-off in demand for real estate in trusts correlates with GDP estimates showing a steady decline in income from real assets after 1755 and what some have noted in this period as a puzzle – the lack of an increased rate of return on rents and private loans at a time of robust investment in government debt. Most importantly, though, the transition demonstrates the ability of the government to induce a broad spectrum of the propertied population to invest in securities, if the vehicle they offered had the right characteristics, which were not necessarily highest yield or liquidity without loss in value.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"95 - 114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S096856501900026X","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49265429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Origins of too-big-to-fail policy in the United States","authors":"George Nurisso, E. Prescott","doi":"10.1017/s0968565020000013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0968565020000013","url":null,"abstract":"This article traces the origin of too-big-to-fail policy in modern US banking to the bailout of the $1.2b Bank of the Commonwealth in 1972. It describes this bailout and those of subsequent banks through that of Continental Illinois in 1984. During this period, market concentration due to interstate banking restrictions is a factor in most of the bailouts and systemic risk concerns were raised to justify the bailouts of surprisingly small banks. Finally, most of the bailouts in this period relied on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's use of the Essentiality Doctrine and Federal Reserve lending. A discussion of this doctrine is used to illustrate how legal constraints on regulators may become less constraining over time.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"1 - 15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s0968565020000013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41974840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of a creditor in the making of a debt crisis: the French government's financial support for Poland, between cold war interests and economic constraints, 1958-1981","authors":"Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol","doi":"10.1017/S0968565019000222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565019000222","url":null,"abstract":"In spite of considerable attention granted to sovereign debt failures, we still have limited knowledge of the incentives which induced creditors to lend at unsustainable levels. This article looks at the French government’s policy towards Poland from 1958, when economic cooperation between the two countries started, until Poland's announcement in 1981 that it could not service its debt. Export credit guarantees supported France's financial involvement, and this implied the government's strong influence on the decision to lend. This article brings out the tension between economic and political priorities in French policymaking during the cold war. Archival evidence reveals that as early as 1975 the French finance ministry warned that French risks were excessive; that Poland’s growing economic difficulties would render the country unable to repay its debts; and recommended limiting France's financial commitments. The French government, however, decided not only to carry on but also to increase lending, in order to support its political objective of using economic and financial means to relax East–West tensions. This article illustrates how creditors play a part in sovereign debt crises by voluntarily turning a blind eye to a country’s growing inability to repay its debts, and thus reinforce a vicious circle of indebtedness.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"73 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0968565019000222","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49382548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Catering and dividend policy: evidence from the Netherlands over the twentieth century","authors":"Abe de Jong, Philip Fliers, Henry van Beusichem","doi":"10.1017/s0968565019000209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0968565019000209","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the determinants of Dutch firms’ dividend policies in the twentieth century. We identify three distinct episodes and document shifts in dividend policies in the 1930s and 1980s, because firm managers cater to the changing preferences of shareholders. The first episode, prior to World War II, was characterised by dividends that were fixed contracts between shareholder and management and the payouts were mechanically determined by earnings. The second epoch of Dutch dividend policy, until the 1980s, was characterised by dividend smoothing. Dividends were still strongly related to earnings, but because of shareholder's preferences for stable dividend income, earnings changes are incorporated in dividends with a lag. Finally, dividend policy in the most recent episode is inspired by shareholder wealth maximisation, based on agency and signalling motives. In this period, dividends have become largely decoupled from earnings.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138534522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reparations revisited: the role of economic advisers in reforming German central banking and public finance","authors":"R. Yee","doi":"10.1017/S0968565019000258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565019000258","url":null,"abstract":"The economic advisers of the 1924 Dawes Committee enacted currency and banking reforms as a means of resolving financial and geopolitical problems. Although the committee members stated that they had no plans to resolve the Ruhr occupation, evidence from the technical advisers demonstrated the opposite. Economists Edwin Kemmerer, Joseph Davis and Arthur Young sought to appease Franco-Belgian demands for a resolution to the reparations debate by balancing the German budget and reorganising the banking system, thereby also addressing the question of military occupation. This research delves into the advisers’ reports on public finance, currency stabilisation and the gold standard, arguing that their attempts to assuage reparation-related concerns rested on major reforms to German central banking.","PeriodicalId":44063,"journal":{"name":"Financial History Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"45 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2019-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0968565019000258","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47355799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}