A History of Banking in Antebellum America: Financial Markets and Economic Development in an Era of Nation-Building (Studies in Macroeconomic History)
Cambridge University Press, 2/13/2000
EAN 9780521662857, ISBN10: 0521662850
Hardcover, 284 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
Previous banking histories have focused on the money supply function of early American banks and its connection to the recurrent boom-bust cycle of the antebellum era. This history focuses on the credit generating function of American banks It demonstrates that banks aggressively promoted development rather than passively followed its course. Using previously unexploited data, Professor Bodenhorn shows that banks helped to advance the development of incipient industrialization. Additionally, he shows that banks formed long-distance relationships that promoted geographic capital mobility, thereby assuring that short-term capital was directed in socially desirable directions, that is, where it was most in demand. He then traces those institutional and legal developments that allowed for this capital mobility. The result was that America was served by an efficient system of financial intermediaries by the mid-nineteenth century.
1. Introduction
historical setting and three views of banking
2. Financial development and economic growth in Antebellum America
3. Financing entrepreneurship
banks, merchants and manufacturers
4. The integration of short-term capital markets in Antebellum America
5. Banks, brokers, and capital mobility
6. Conclusion
how banks mattered.