IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehs/wpaper/16028.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financialisation of the early Victorian economy and the London Stock Exchange

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Odlyzko

    (University of Minnesota)

Abstract

"Previously unknown basic statistics are obtained about the opera- tions of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in early Victorian times. Integration of data from the Bank of England Archive with price reports, press coverage, and other sources produces estimates for volume of transactions, distribution of earnings among dealers, efficiency of the market, and the coverage of avail- able price lists. For example, it is found that for some securities, prices were reported for under 20% of transactions. The LSE was surprisingly small and by some measures also surprisingly efficient. Much of its efficiency appears to have come from its deep involvement in the “shadow banking system” of that era, a connection that appears to have been misunderstood and almost com- pletely neglected in the past. The low levels of activity, the dominance of small investors, and low cost of the system show the very early stages of the “fi- nancialization” of the modern economy and provide interesting perspectives on modern developments."

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Odlyzko, 2016. "Financialisation of the early Victorian economy and the London Stock Exchange," Working Papers 16028, Economic History Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehs:wpaper:16028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/mania10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Temin, Peter & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2013. "Prometheus Shackled: Goldsmith Banks and England's Financial Revolution after 1700," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199944279.
    2. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226301532 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Davis, Lance & Neal, Larry, 1998. "Micro Rules and Macro Outcomes: The Impact of Micro Structure on the Efficiency of Security Exchanges, London, New York, and Paris, 1800-1914," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 40-45, May.
    4. Neal, Larry & Davis, Lance, 2006. "The evolution of the structure and performance of the London Stock Exchange in the first global financial market, 1812–1914," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 279-300, December.
    5. Ann M. Carlos & Larry Neal, 2006. "The micro‐foundations of the early London capital market: Bank of England shareholders during and after the South Sea Bubble, 1720–251," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(3), pages 498-538, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew Odlyzko, 2017. "The London Stock Exchange and the British shadow banking system," Working Papers 17002, Economic History Society.
    2. Patrick K. O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2023. "Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694–1844," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 305-329, February.
    3. Alquist, Ron, 2010. "How important is liquidity risk for sovereign bond risk premia? Evidence from the London stock exchange," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 219-229, November.
    4. Buchner, Michael, 2018. "The Berlin Bourse in the London mirror: An asymmetric comparison of microstructures and the role of Germany's large banks in securities trading, c. 1860-1914," IBF Paper Series 01-18, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.
    5. Calomiris, Charles W. & Jaremski, Matthew, 2024. "The puzzling persistence of financial crises: A selective review of 2000 years of evidence," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    6. Monnet, Cyril & Quintin, Erwan, 2007. "Why do financial systems differ? History matters," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1002-1017, May.
    7. Marc Flandreau, 2013. "Sovereign states, bondholders committees, and the London Stock Exchange in the nineteenth century (1827–68): new facts and old fictions," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 668-696, WINTER.
    8. D'Maris Coffman & Judy Z. Stephenson & Nathan Sussman, 2022. "Financing the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1120-1150, November.
    9. Condorelli, Stefano, 2014. "The 1719-20 stock euphoria: a pan-European perspective," MPRA Paper 68652, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2015.
    10. Lin, Chen & Ma, Chicheng & Sun, Yuchen & Xu, Yuchen, 2021. "The telegraph and modern banking development, 1881–1936," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 730-749.
    11. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:115:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Hoffman, Philip T. & Postel-Vinay, Gilles & Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 2015. "Entry, information, and financial development: A century of competition between French banks and notaries," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 39-57.
    13. Judy Z. Stephenson, 2018. "‘Real’ wages? Contractors, workers, and pay in London building trades, 1650–1800," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(1), pages 106-132, February.
    14. Ann M. (Ann Martina) Carlos & Karen Maguire & Larry Neal, 2008. "“A knavish people ... so dextrous in bargaining that it is impossible for Christians to expect any advantage in their dealings with them” : London Jewry and the stockmarket during the South Sea Bubble," Working Papers 200806, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    15. Ann M. Carlos & Erin Fletcher & Larry Neal, 2015. "Share portfolios in the early years of financial capitalism: London, 1690–1730," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 574-599, May.
    16. Stephan Heblich & Alex Trew, 2019. "Banking and Industrialization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1753-1796.
    17. Meynhardt, Timo & von Müller, Camillo, 2013. "„Wir wollen Werte schaffen für die Gesellschaft“ – Der Public Value im Spannungsfeld zwischen Aktienwert und Gemeinwohl. Eine Fallstudie am Beispiel der Deutsche Börse AG," ZögU - Zeitschrift für öffentliche und gemeinwirtschaftliche Unternehmen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 36(2-3), pages 119-149.
    18. Pirrong, Craig, 1999. "The organization of financial exchange markets: Theory and evidence," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 329-357, November.
    19. Mercedes Marcó del Pont, 2013. "Introduction: the role of central banks in economic development with an emphasis on the recent Argentinean experience," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 1(3), pages 267-272, January.
    20. Nuno Palma & Carolyn Sissoko, 2022. "Crowding in During the Seven Years' War," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2211, Economics, The University of Manchester, revised Jun 2024.
    21. Gregory Price & Warren Whatley, 2021. "Did profitable slave trading enable the expansion of empire?: The Asiento de Negros, the South Sea Company and the financial revolution in Great Britain," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 15(3), pages 675-718, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehs:wpaper:16028. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chair Public Engagement Committe (currently David Higgins - Newcastle) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.