Free trade is often associated with late-20th century globalization. The creation of large continental trade associations like NAFTA, Mercosur, and the EU lead many to consider trade liberalization to be a recent phenomenon. The truth is that free trade, and the economic rationale behind it, had its birth in the 19th century with the decline…
When it comes to financing real estate purchases, mortgages have been around for centuries. The first loans called mortgages developed in the middle ages; the word itself comes from Norman law books as “mort gage” or “dead pledge.” The word dead here refers not to any human death but to the fact that medieval mortgages…
The ability of financial markets in a free-market system to raise capital is virtually unrivaled. So much so that even communist governments have turned to them for loans. The Soviet Union was no stranger to the sovereign debt markets and the Soviet state raised money by selling bonds in Western financial capitals during the last…
The 17th and 18th centuries saw financial innovations whose creations have direct heirs today, from the modern deposit bank to the joint-stock company. However, it would be incorrect to imply that these institutions were the first of their kind. When it comes to banking for example, older Renaissance-era institutions made substantial breakthroughs and while that…
The flow of information is an important part of any financial system. Whether it be in the agglomeration of important institutions in a single financial center or the communications technology used, the need for information has left its mark on financial services. For centuries, business could only be done as quickly as a courier’s legs…
Among the basic functions of a currency is to serve as a medium of exchange. In ages past, gold and silver fulfilled this role and made up much of the world’s currency. Today, most currency is paper money, either pegged to another currency or backed by nothing in particular. However, it is conventional wisdom that…
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…
Much as it was for the country as a whole, the middle of the 19th century was a formative era for American finance. The Era of Free Banking was a period of very little regulation of banks and saw the founding of many of them. But two of today’s most massive American financial firms, Wells…
The borrowing needs of governments usually exceed what any one creditor is able to lend. For centuries, governments have worked around this by selling bonds with standardized terms to investors, millions of them. However common this practice is today, it was absent in most ancient and medieval civilizations. It was not until the Late Middle…
Banks are rather curious institutions. While we may not recognize it today, the idea that your money is safer in the hands of a stranger is a tough sell. If a random person came up to you on the street and offered a quarter percent more interest for your savings, claiming his vault was more…
