In the 1840s, Britain was gripped by a mania for railway company shares that saw share prices double before a change in prospects caused the market to give up all of these gains and more. Given the scale of the transformations promised by new railways were so substantial, railway mania was perhaps an inevitable frenzy.…
In 1879, the French Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique de Panama embarked on the project of cutting a canal through Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This was a bold project but large canals had been built before and one crossing Egypt at Suez had already transformed the world a few years earlier.…
A transcontinental railroad across mid-19th century America was a colossal project, far larger than any American railroad built before then. While campaigned for and debated for years, work got underway while the country was in the midst of civil war. Trepidation on the part of investors meant it hardly got off the ground at all.…
The long-term benefits of a great project often have little to do with its exact timing, especially for undertakings years away from completion anyway. These extensive works must be planned and launched without a firm understanding of how the world will look once they are completed. The Erie Canal, which connects the Great Lakes, and…
Expensive ventures often entail borrowing money and the banking system is one of the largest and most accessible lenders around. Their role in financing grand projects give banks the ability to make or break the dreams of developers, entrepreneurs, and even governments. Because the latter can approve, form, and regulate banks, governments are in the…
Companies in the United States are peculiarly reliant on capital markets to obtain debt financing. Whereas large firms elsewhere often turn to banks for loans, even mid-sized companies in America find it easier to float bonds. Many cite the relative lack of large ‘universal banks’ in the United States, at least up until the recent…
There aren’t very many financial instruments, especially bonds, that distributed income to investors for over a century. The relatively few that exist are usually perpetual bonds, those without any maturity date at all. Today, they are a relatively small category of bonds available to investors. However, there was a time when perpetual bonds were the…
