Incorporated in 1872, Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas – Paribas – inherited the European and international traditions of several well-established banking houses (Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt and Goüin, among others). It then became a sort of model for French-style merchant banking and, as a result, swiftly aroused historians' subsequent curiosity. The bank's unusual character intrigued them. It was a hybrid, combining continental European private banking, then in decline, major retail or commercial banking, which was growing strongly, and British merchant and American investment banking that was already setting a trend.

We analyse the money-financed fiscal stimulus implemented in Venice during the famine and plague of 1629–31, which was equivalent to a ‘net-worth helicopter money’ strategy – a monetary expansion generating losses to the issuer. We argue that the strategy aimed at reconciling the need to subsidize inhabitants suffering from containment policies with the desire to prevent an increase in long-term government debt, but it generated much monetary instability and had to be quickly reversed. This episode highlights the redistributive implications of the design of macroeconomic policies and the role of political economy factors in determining such designs.

This article assesses the extent to which bankers approached sovereign debt defaults during the interwar period according to norms established during the nineteenth century. Bankers treated postrevolutionary Mexico as a hybrid, that is, as a case of both developmental and revenue default, in Fishlow's taxonomy, in the interest of protecting the rights of bondholders generally. Their approach led them to reject the argument of US ambassador to Mexico (and former Morgan partner), Dwight W. Morrow, that a government could be financially insolvent. Bankers acted similarly during the debt crisis of the 1980s.

In the classical monetary debates, the Banking School held that notes would be equally demand-elastic whether supplied by many issuers or a single one. The Free Banking School held that notes would be less demand-elastic if supplied by a single issuer. These assertions have rarely, if ever, been subject to more stringent statistical testing. In this study the elastic properties of the note stock of the Swedish note banking system in 1880–95 is compared with those of the regime in 1904–13, when the Bank of Sweden held a note monopoly. Evidence suggests that notes did not become less elastic after monopolisation, thus lending support to the views of the Banking School.

In this article, we analyse geographical, occupational and kinship ties amongst apprentices and their masters of the London Goldsmiths’ Company in the second half of the seventeenth century, at a time when the profession was undergoing radical change, thus forming the cradle of British banking. Systematic comparisons of social capital of the guild's two subgroups (the ‘Bankers’ and the ‘Craftsmen and Retailers’) show few such ties at entry and only slightly more amongst office-holders. Overall, ‘Bankers’ display slightly greater social ties in the company overall. Hypotheses for such patterns are discussed, including activity specificity, wealth and position in the guild and households’ economic strategies. The article calls for a household-based approach to economic choices as opposed to one focusing on the guild.

Following a review of the etymology and modern usage of the term ‘arbitrage’, this article explores the relevance of historical context to possible instances of ancient arbitrage activity. Types of possible ‘arbitrage’ associated with the use of overvalued coinage in regions of Greek influence are considered. Comparison with Roman civilization reveals the relevance of social attitudes and legal institutions to the ability to execute arbitrage trades. Specific attention is given to the possibility of arbitrage across the Roman frontier to India and the impact of debasements during the imperial period. Recognizing that sources prior to early modern times are scant, numismatic, epigraphic and literary evidence that is available to make inferences about ancient arbitrage activity is assessed.