Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:44:50.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - International Capital Movements, Domestic Capital Markets, and American Economic Growth, 1820–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Lance Davis
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
Robert Cull
Affiliation:
World Bank
Stanley L. Engerman
Affiliation:
University of Rochester, New York
Robert E. Gallman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

For almost three-quarters of a century, from the end of World War I until the early 1980s, the United States was the world’s largest capital exporter. In the last decade of the previous century, Americans had begun to finance economic activity in Canada and Mexico; until recently these transfers grew and their geographic focus broadened. Over the past decade, however, the world’s largest creditor has become its largest debtor.

Before 1914, however, it was Europe who acted as the world’s banker; and within that continent, it was Britain who was the senior partner. Moreover, over the course of the nineteenth century, it was the United States that received the lion’s share of Europe’s foreign investment. Unlike their great grandchildren, nineteenth-century Americans displayed a high propensity to save. Although the evidence for the early years is sketchy, the share of net capital formation in net national product appears to have averaged about 6.5 percent in the years between 1805 and 1840 and to have risen to almost 20 percent by the end of the century; and most of the resources that were diverted from consumption were domestic not foreign.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, of , Dorothy, British Investment in American Railroads, 1834–1898 (Charlottesville, VA, 1970).Google Scholar
Alfred, D. Chander, “The Growth of the Transnational Industrial Firm in the United States and the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 33 (1980).Google Scholar
Allen, Frederick Lewis, The Great Pierpont Morgan (New York, 1949).Google Scholar
Ashmead, of Edward, , Twenty-five Years of Mining, 1880–1904 (London, 1909).Google Scholar
Bacon, Nathaniel T., “American International Indebtedness,” Yale Review, 9 (1900)Google Scholar
Bain, H. Foster and Thornton, Read Thomas, Ores and Industry in South America (New York, 1934).Google Scholar
Baskerville, of Peter, , “Americans in Britain’s Backyard: The Railway Era in Upper Canada, 1850–1880,” Business History Review, 55 (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baskin, Jonathan Barron, “The Development of Corporate Financial Markets in Britain and the United States, 1600–1914: Overcoming Asymmetric Information,” Business History Review, 62 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benham, Lee and Keefer, Phillip, “Voting in Firms: The Roles of Agenda Control, Size and Voter Homogeneity,” Economic Inquiry, 39 (1991)Google Scholar
Bogart, E. L., The Economic History of the United States, 2nd edition (New York, 1913).Google Scholar
Uselding, Paul (ed.), “British Agricultural Investment in the Dakotas, 1877–1953,” Business and Economic History, 5 (1976).Google Scholar
Buckley, Peter J. and Roberts, Brian R., European Direct Investment in the USA before World War I (New York, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullock, C. J., Williams, John H., and Tucker, Rufus S., “The Balance of Trade of the United States,” Review of Economic Statistics 1 (1919)Google Scholar
Clark, William and Turner, Charlie, “International Trade and the Evolution of the American Capital Market, 1888–1911,” Journal of Economic History, 45 (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleveland, Frederick A. and Powell, Fred Wilbur, Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the United States (New York, 1909).Google Scholar
Constance, South-worth, “The American-Canadian Newsprint Paper Industry and the Tariff,” Journal of Political Economy, 30 (1922).Google Scholar
Craig, Lee A. and Fisher, Douglas, “Integration of the European Business Cycle: 1871–1910,” Explorations in Economic History, 29 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Lance E. and Cull, Robert J., International Capital Markets and American Economic Growth, 1820–1914 (Cambridge, 1994).Google Scholar
Davis, Lance and Gallman, Robert, “Savings, Investment, and Economic Growth: The United States in the Nineteenth Century,” in James, John and Thomas, Marks (eds.), Capitalism in Context (Chicago, 1994), table 2.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance and Huttenback, Robert, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912 (Cambridge, 1986), chap. 2.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance E., “The Investment Market, 1870–1914: The Evolution of a National Market,” Journal of Economic History, 25 (1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, of Lance, E., “Capital Immobilities and Finance Capitalism: A Study of Economic Evolution in the United States, 1820–1920,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, 2nd Series, 1, (1963).Google Scholar
DeLong, of Bradford, , “Did Morgan’s Men Create Value?” in Temin, Peter (ed.), Inside the Business Enterprise: Historical Perspectives on the Use of Information (Chicago, 1991).Google Scholar
Dunn, of , Robert, American Foreign Investments (New York, 1926).Google Scholar
Dunning, John H., American Investment in British Manufacturing (London, 1958).Google Scholar
Dunning, of John, H., Studies in International Investment (London, 1970).Google Scholar
Dunning, of John, H., “British Investment in U.S. Industry,” in Moorgate and Wall Street (1961).Google Scholar
Edelstein, Michael, Overseas Investment in the Age of High Imperialism: The United Kingdom, 1850–1914 (New York, 1982).Google Scholar
Edwards, G., The Evolution of Finance Capitalism (New York, 1908).Google Scholar
Evans, Paul D., The Holland Land Company (Buffalo, 1924), passim.Google Scholar
Faulkner, Harold Underwood, The Decline of Laissez Faire, 1897–1917 (New York, 1951).Google Scholar
Feis, Herbert, Europe the World’s Banker, 1870–1914: An Account of European Foreign Investment and the Connection of World Finance with Diplomacy before 1914 (New Haven, 1930).Google Scholar
Field, of Fred, W., Capital Investment in Canada: Some Facts and Figures Respecting One of the Most Attractive Investment Fields in the World (Montreal, 1914).Google Scholar
French, M. J., “The Emergence of a U.S. Multinational Enterprise: The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, 1910–1939,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 40 (1987).Google Scholar
Gallman, Robert E., “The United States Capital Stock in the Nineteenth Century,” Engerman, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E. (eds.), Long Term Factors in Economic Growth, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 51 (Chicago, 1986).Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Raymond W., “The Growth of Reproducible Wealth of the United States of America,” in Kuznets, Simon (ed.), Income and Wealth of the United States: Trends and Structures, Income and Wealth, Series II (Cambridge, 1952).Google Scholar
Hall, A. R., “A Note on the English Capital Market as a Source for Home Investment Before 1914,” Economica, 24 (1957).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, John Winthrop, Men and Volts, The Story of General Electric (New York, 1941).Google Scholar
Haven, Charles T. and Belden, Frank A., A History of the Colt Revolver and Other Arms Made by Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company from 1836 to 1940 (New York, 1940).Google Scholar
Healy, Kent T., “Development of the National Transportation System,” in Williamson, Harold F. (ed.), The Growth of the American Economy (New York, 1951).Google Scholar
Heath, Charles Monroe, William Guggenheim (New York, 1934).Google Scholar
Hidy, Ralph W. and Hidy, Muriel E., History of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), Pioneering in Big Business, 1882–1911 (New York, 1955).Google Scholar
Hill, Howard C., Roosevelt and the Caribbean (Chicago, 1927).Google Scholar
Hobson, C. K., The Export of Capital (New York, 1914).Google Scholar
Jackson, W. Turrentine, The Enterprising Scot: Investors in the American West after 1873 (Edinburgh, 1968).Google Scholar
James, John, “The Development of the National Money Market, 1893–1911,” Journal of Economic History, 36 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, Marquis, The Texaco Story, the First Fifty Years (Houston, 1953).Google Scholar
Jenks, Leland Hamilton, Our Cuban Colony: A Study of Sugar (New York, 1928).Google Scholar
Jenks, of Leland, , The Migration of British Capital to 1875 (London, 1963).Google Scholar
John, R. Southworth and Homs, Percy C., El Directo Oficial Minero de Mexico, 9 (Mexico, 1908).Google Scholar
Johnson, Arthur M. and Supple, Barry E., Boston Capitalists and Western Railroads (Cambridge, MA, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joralemon, Ira B., Romantic Copper, Its Lure and Lore (New York, 1936).Google Scholar
Kepner, Charles David and Jay, Henry Soothill, The Banana Empire: A Case Study of Economic Imperialism (New York, 1935).Google Scholar
Knight, Melvin M., The Americans in Santo Domingo (New York, 1928).Google Scholar
Kreps, of David, M., A Course in Microeconomic Theory (Princeton, 1990), Chapter 17Google Scholar
Kuznets, of Simon, , “Foreign Economic Relations of the United States and Their Impact upon the Domestic Economy: A Review of Long Term Trends,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 92 (1948).Google Scholar
Lamoreaux, of Naomi, , “Banks, Kinship, and Economic Development: The New England Case,” Journal of Economic History, 46 (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lance, Davis, “The Capital Markets and Industrial Concentration: The U.S. and U.K., A Comparative Study,” Economic History Review, 2nd Series, 19 (1966).Google Scholar
Livermore, Shaw, Early American Land Companies (New York, 1939).Google Scholar
Malloy, William M. (ed.), Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States and Other Powers, 4 vols. (Washington, DC, 1910–1938), vol. I.Google Scholar
Marcosson, Isaac, Metal Magic, The Story of the American Smelting and Refining Company (New York, 1949).Google Scholar
Marshall, Herbert, Southard, Frank A. Jr. and Taylor, Kenneth W., Canadian-American Industry, A Study in International Investment (New Haven, 1936).Google Scholar
Martin, Joseph G., A Century of Finance, Martin’s History of the Boston Stock and Money Markets (Boston, 1898).Google Scholar
May, Stacy and Plaza, Galo, The United Fruit Company in Latin America, Seventh Case Study in a National Planning Association series on United States Business Performance Abroad (Washington, DC, 1958).Google Scholar
McFarlane, Larry A., “British Investment and the Land: Nebraska 1877–1946,” Business History Review 57 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrane, Reginald C., Foreign Bondholders and American State Debts (New York, 1935).Google Scholar
Michie, of Ranald, C., The London and New York Stock Exchanges, 1850–1914 (London, 1987).Google Scholar
Michie, , London and New York. There was no minimum commission rule of the London Stock Exchange until 1912.
Moody, John, The Truth About the Trusts (New York, 1904).Google Scholar
Moore, E. S., American Influence on Canadian Mining (Toronto, 1941).Google Scholar
Morgan, E. Victor and Thomas, W. A., The Stock Exchange: Its History and Functions (London, 1962).Google Scholar
Neal, Larry and Uselding, Paul, “Immigration, a Neglected Source of American Economic Growth: 1790 to 1912,” Oxford Economic Papers, 24 (1972).Google Scholar
,North of Douglass, “The Balance of Payments of the United States, 1790–1860,” and Simon, Matthew, “The Balance of Payments of the United States, 1861–1900,” both of which were published in Parker, William N. (ed.), Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 24 (Princeton, 1960)Google Scholar
O’Brien, Thomas E., “Rich Boy and the Dreams of Avarice: the Guggenheims in Chile,” Business History Review, 63 (1989).Google Scholar
O’Connor, Henry, The Guggenheims: The Making of an American Dynasty (New York, 1976).Google Scholar
Odell, Kerry A., “The Integration of Regional and Interregional Capital Markets: Evidence from the Pacific Coast, 1883–1913,” Journal of Economic History, 49 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oss, Salomon F. Van, America’s Railroads as Investments (New York, 1977).Google Scholar
Paish, George, “Great Britain’s Capital Investments in Individual, Colonial and Foreign Countries,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 74, Part II (1911)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, W. Gates, The Illinois Central and Its Colonization Work (Cambridge, MA, 1934).Google Scholar
Platt, D. C. M., Foreign Finance in Continental Europe and the USA, 1815–1870: Quantities, Origins, Functions, and Distribution (London, 1984).Google Scholar
Pletcher, David M., Rails, Mines, and Progress: Seven American Promoters in Mexico, 1867–1911 (Ithaca, NY, 1958).Google Scholar
Postan, M. M., “Some Recent Problems in the Accumulation of Capital,” Economic History Review, 6 (1935).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, Fred Wilbur, The Railroads of Mexico (Boston, 1912).Google Scholar
Pratt, Sereno S., The Work of Wall Street (New York, 1903).Google Scholar
Raymond, Goldsmith, A Study of Savings in the United States, 3 vols. (Princeton, 1955), Vol. I, 1078, 1080, 1084, and 1086.Google Scholar
Remer, Carl F., American Investments in China (Honolulu, 1929).Google Scholar
Riegel, of Robert, E., The Story of the Western Railroads (Lincoln, NE, 1926).Google Scholar
Ripley, of William, Z., Railroads: Finance and Organization (New York, 1915).Google Scholar
Rippy, J. Fred, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1931).Google Scholar
Rockoff, Hugh, “Regional Interest Rates in Ante Bellum America,” in Goldin, Claudia and Rockoff, Hugh (eds.), Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel (Chicago, 1992).Google Scholar
Sakolski, A. M., The Great American Land Bubble (New York, 1932)Google Scholar
Schmitz, Christopher, “The Rise of Big Business in the World Copper Industry 1870–1930,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, 39 (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Nearing and Freeman, Joseph, Dollar Diplomacy (New York, 1925).Google Scholar
Segal, Harvey H., and Simon, Matthew, “British Foreign Capital Issues, 1865–1914,” Journal of Economic History, 21 (1961).Google Scholar
Senate, U.S., National Monetary Commission, 61st Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 579 (Washington, DC, 1910).Google Scholar
Shottenbeck, Karl T., America’s Stake in International Investment (Washington, DC, 1938).Google Scholar
Smith, Robert F., “The United States and Cuba,” in Bernstein, Marvin (ed.), Foreign Investment in Latin America: Cases and Attitudes (New York, 1966).Google Scholar
Snowden, of Kenneth, A., “Mortgage Rates and American Capital Market Development in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History, 47 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Southard, Frank A. Jr., American Industry in Europe: Origins and Development of the Multinational Corporation (Boston, 1931: reissued New York, 1976).Google Scholar
Southworth, John R., El Directo Oficial Minero de Mexico, 11 (Mexico, 1910).Google Scholar
Spence, of Clark, C., “British Investment and the American Mining Frontier, 1860–1914,” New Mexico Historical Review, 36 (1961).Google Scholar
Stanley, Lebergott, “The Returns to U.S. Imperialism, 1890–1929,” Journal of Economic History, 40 (1980).Google Scholar
Stedman, Edmund C., The New York Stock Exchange: Its History, Its Contribution to National Prosperity, and its Relation to American Finance at the Outset of the Twentieth Century (New York, 1969 [copyright 1905]).Google Scholar
Sylla, Richard, “Federal Policy, Banking Market Structure, and Capital Mobilization in the United States, 1863–1913, Journal of Economic History, 29 (1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Richard, “International Aspects of the Development of German Banking. In Cameron, Rondo and Bovykin, V. I. (eds.), International Banking, 1870–1914 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar
,U.S. Burean of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC, 1975), II.
,U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC, 1975).
,U.S. Government, Select Committee on an Inquiry into the Occupation and Administration of Haiti and Santo Domingo, Hearings, 67th Congress, 1st and 2nd sessions, (Washington, DC, 1922), 2 vols.
Vasquez, Josefina Zaraida and Meyer, Lorenzo, The United States and Mexico (Chicago, 1985).Google Scholar
Veenendaal, Augustus J. Jr., “The Kansas City Southern Railway and the Dutch Connection,” Business History Review, 61 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, David A., Report of the Special Commissioner of Revenue, 1869, 41 st Congress, House of Representatives, Executive Document No. 27, December 29, 1869, xxvi.
Wells, David A., A Study of Mexico (New York, 1887).Google Scholar
Wilkins, Mira, The History of Foreign Investment in the United States to 1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1989).Google Scholar
Wilkins, Mira, “The Free-Standing Company, 1870–1914: An Important Type of British Foreign Direct Investment,” Economic History Review, 2nd Series, 41 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Benjamin H., Economic Foreign Policy of the United States (New York, 1929).Google Scholar
Williamson, Harold F. and Daum, Arnold R., The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Illumination (Evanston, 1955).Google Scholar
Williamson, of Jeffrey, G., American Growth and the Balance of Payments, 1820–1913: A Study of the Long Swing (Chapel Hill, 1964).Google Scholar
Wilson, Charles Morrow, Empire in Gold and Green: The Story of the American Banana Trade (New York, 1947).Google Scholar
Wyckofff, Peter, Wall Street and the Stock Markets: A Chronology (1644–1971), 1st Edition (Philadelphia, 1982)Google Scholar
Young, Ralph A., Handbook of American Underwriting of Foreign Securities, U.S. Department of Commerce, Trade Promotion Series # 104 (Washington, DC, 1930).Google Scholar
Zevin, of Robert, B., “Are World Financial Markets More Open? If So Why and With What Effects?” in Banuri, Tariq and Schor, Juliet B. (eds.), Financial Openness and National Autonomy (New York, 1992).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×