Description

This study examines the impact of British capital flows on the evolution of capital markets in four countries. This study examines the impact of British capital flows on the evolution of capital markets in Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States over the years 1870 to 1914. It contrasts the experiences of the frontier countries and provides historical insights into current economic problems in Asia and Latin America. This study examines the impact of British capital flows on the evolution of capital markets in Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States over the years 1870 to 1914. It contrasts the experiences of the frontier countries and provides historical insights into current economic problems in Asia and Latin America. This study examines the impact of British capital flows on the evolution of capital markets in four countries - Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States - over the years 1870 to 1914. In substantive chapters on each country it offers parallel histories of the evolution of their financial infrastructures - commercial banks, non-bank intermediaries, primary security markets, formal secondary security markets, and the institutions that provide the international financial links connecting the frontier country with the British capital market. At one level, the work constitutes a quantitative history of the development of the capital markets of five countries in the late nineteenth century. At a second level, it provides the basis for a useable taxonomy for the study of institutional invention and innovation. At a third, it suggests some lessons from the past about modern policy issues. 1. Institutional invention and innovation: foreign capital transfers and the evolution of the domestic capital markets in four frontier countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States of America, 1865–1914; 2. The United Kingdom; 3. International capital movements, domestic capital markets, and American economic growth, 1865–1914; 4. Domestic savings, international capital flows, and the evolution of domestic capital markets: the Canadian experience; 5. Domestic saving, international capital flows, and the evolution of domestic capital markets: the Australian experience; 6. Argentine savings, investment, and economic growth before World War I; 7. Lessons from the past: international financial flows and the evolution of capital markets, Britain and Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States before World War I; 8. Skipping ahead: the evolution of the world's finance markets 1914–90: a brief sketch; 9. Lessons from the past/bibliography. Review of the hardback: 'A vast amount of work on the evolution of financial markets has been brought together in this large volume … The book is an explicit attempt at drawing out lessons from historical experience. It is hugely successful in doing that. It is a powerful demonstration that the lessons are there.' History Review of the hardback: 'The book is an explicit attempt at drawing out lessons from historical experience. It is hugely successful in doing that. It is a powerful demonstration that the lessons are there.' Forrest Capie, City University Business School, London