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Learning and the Creation of Stock-Market Institutions: Evidence from the Royal African and Hudson's Bay Companies, 1670–1700

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Ann M. Carlos
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
Jennifer Key
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
Jill L. Dupree
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.

Abstract

In this article we use a unique source—a 30-year time series of the share transactions of two joint-stock companies—to examine the growth of the London capital market prior to and immediately after the Glorious Revolution. We argue that the London experience with open capital markets was not solely the result of 1689. Rather it was the learning by private individuals and goldsmith bankers which took place in the decades before 1689 that allowed the market to take full advantage of the property rights changes which occurred with the change in regimes.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1998

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