This article analyses a set of financial advisory missions led primarily by Robert Triffin of the US Federal Reserve Board to Latin American countries during the 1940s. These missions developed a new approach to international ‘money doctoring’ that rejected both the content and style of the better-known US financial advisory missions led by Edwin Kemmerer during the 1920s. The missions were driven by a number of motivations that emerged from the politics of the New Deal and the Good Neighbour policy. The episode highlights the diversity of international money doctoring experiences, the importance of the financial dimensions of the Good Neighbour policy, and the wider geographical impact of a new kind of financial internationalism that emerged in US foreign policy in the wake of the 1930s.

Numerous handloom weavers' cottages in Lancashire were constructed by terminating building societies. Given their numbers, it is evident that the role of such societies in the regional socio-economic context has been understated. Identifying their membership reveals that these were not self-help schemes to enable artisans to own their own homes, but rather that they offered opportunities for those with surplus income to invest in tenanted properties at a time when the skills of the handloom weaver were at a premium. This provision was vital to Lancashire's burgeoning economy, and offered subscribers an additional source of income.

The development of a well-adapted financial system was a main part of the successful Swedish economic modernisation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In this article it is shown that this development followed the pattern of a financial revolution. Major institutional and organisational changes that took place roughly between the late 1850s and early 1870s led to a rapid increase in liquidity and financial services. This financial revolution preceded the acceleration in economic growth in general and in the modern, industrial sector in particular. Monetisation especially encouraged growth, both in the industrial sector and in GDP as a whole. The basis of the financial system, measured as commercial bank assets and equity capital, affected overall GDP growth. The results also clearly promoted the importance of the development of the financial sector and monetisation as an interlinked and complementary process.

Trade credit - the credit provided by suppliers to firms - can be seen as the second-best solution when financial development fails to keep pace with economic growth. This article analyses trade credit between Catalan cotton manufacturers and their clients in nineteenth-century Spain. Spanish historiography has suggested that trade credit had a detrimental effect on the profitability of the cotton firms. Based on an analysis of the archives of several firms, as well as judicial and notary sources, we present a more optimistic interpretation of the system. Manufacturers were, in fact, acting as their customers' bankers because they were in the best position to perform this function. They built up a good information structure, managed the credit risk efficiently and got positive returns from this activity.