Preliminary Programme

Wed 24 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Thu 25 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Fri 26 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Sat 27 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.00

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Wednesday 24 March 2021 12.30 - 13.45
A-2 ECO11 Early Financial Markets in Europe and Asia
A
Network: Economic History Chair: Christiaan van Bochove
Organizer: Christiaan van Bochove Discussants: -
Tomas de Albuquerque : The Portuguese Financial Market in the Eighteenth Century. The Investment Portfolios of their Investors
Recently, there has been renewed interest in the study of the financial market. Studies on the institutions, role of the state, market products and investors are perfuse. Recent studies such as Carlos, Fletcher and Neal (2015) and Smith (2018) analyse the English India Company’s shareholders’ investment portfolios to further understand ... (Show more)
Recently, there has been renewed interest in the study of the financial market. Studies on the institutions, role of the state, market products and investors are perfuse. Recent studies such as Carlos, Fletcher and Neal (2015) and Smith (2018) analyse the English India Company’s shareholders’ investment portfolios to further understand their composition and weight of each financial product. Carlos et al (2015), concluded there exists an increase of investments on financial products, but the majority of portfolios aren’t diversified. They say that 80% of financial investments are only in the company.
Conversely, financial development is deeply related to the economic growth, and the enforcement of institutions that protect the property rights diminish risk and boost investment. Considering this institutional factors, historians have considered the country’s political constitution and have pointed out parliamentary regimes, for checks and balances on the monarch’s power, developing earlier capital markets.
However, a comparative study of how markets work between countries with different political framework, is still missing. I propose to study the Portuguese case, based on the shareholders of the Portuguese colonial companies in the eighteenth century.
I will focus on the shareholders with ten or more shares, and build their portfolio investments looking at company shares, short time loans and public debt. I intend to understand the composition of these portfolios and how diversified they were. I expect this comparative approach will tell us which were the critical differences between Portugal and other more developed financial markets.
References:
CARLOS, Ann, FLETCHER, Erin & NEAL, Larry, «Share portfolios in the early years of financial capitalism: London, 1690-1730» in Economic History Review, 68, 2, 2015, pp.574-599
SMITH, Edmond, «The global interests of London’s commercial community, 1599-1625: investment in the East India Company», in Economic History Review, 00, 0, 2018, pp.1-29 (Show less)

Íñigo Ena Sanjuán : Municipal Debt and State-formation in the Eighteenth-century Crown of Aragon
After the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt, the Spanish monarchy lost most of its European territories. The ancient Crown of Aragon suffered a dramatic dismembering: some territories, namely Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, and Catalonia, continued to belong to the Spanish king, but Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Minorca were given to other ... (Show more)
After the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt, the Spanish monarchy lost most of its European territories. The ancient Crown of Aragon suffered a dramatic dismembering: some territories, namely Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, and Catalonia, continued to belong to the Spanish king, but Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Minorca were given to other European monarchs as a compensation. Immediately after the signing of the peace, rulers changed the political, fiscal, and financial structures of the kingdoms by reforming institutions and implementing new policies; however, what remained in all cases was debt, more concretely that of the municipalities. During the whole 18th century, Southern European monarchies tried to amortise that debt, but the fiscal structure of the municipalities, the type of loans (redeemable annuities), and, more importantly, the attitude of creditors (which were mainly ecclesiastical institutions) and local elites prevented rulers from succeeding.

This almost unknown process, the restructuring of the debt of the municipalities, was a key process in the formation of the states of Southern Catholic Europe. In fact, what I argue is that debt was a major political tool in the hands of creditors and local oligarchies (which were generally the same people or families) to participate in the government of the monarchies. Furthermore, I try to demonstrate that, after its dismemberment, the Crown of Aragon continued to exist through common practices and beliefs which survived, in part, thanks to the persistence of local indebtment.

In this paper, the evolution of the debt of five cities in three different monarchies between 1715 and 1788 is examined. The restructuring agreements, the assemblies of creditors, and the political, fiscal, economic, and social consequences derived from the renegotiation of the municipal debt of the five cases are compared to each other, in an attempt to find parallelisms and differences between them. The paper is mainly based on sources from municipal and ecclesiastical archives, in order to study the same phenomenon from diverse but complementary perspectives. It intends to engage with wider discussions on state-formation and political economy. (Show less)

Jaco Zuijderduijn : Imprisonment for Public Debt: Merchants, Loan Guarantees, and Reprisals in the Medieval Economy
The paper discusses a common type of security in medieval finance: the community responsibility system, which exposed guarantors to reprisals. Evidence shows the community responsibility system frequently led to reprisals, especially against merchants who were either imprisoned for debt, or had their commodities confiscated. This type of security was mainly ... (Show more)
The paper discusses a common type of security in medieval finance: the community responsibility system, which exposed guarantors to reprisals. Evidence shows the community responsibility system frequently led to reprisals, especially against merchants who were either imprisoned for debt, or had their commodities confiscated. This type of security was mainly used by cities to guarantee loans. Often they did not do this to borrow money the city required itself, but rather to provide the ruler with loan guarantees: travelling citizens acted as collateral, and thus played a crucial role in enabling the ruler to create sovereign debt. Cities’ willingness to provide this financial service for many centuries, while exposing their merchants to reprisals in the process, must be seen in the context of Charles Tilly’s model of an ongoing exchange where cities provided financial services and rulers compensated them with political and economic privileges.
Network: economics

(Show less)



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