Framing tulipmania in terms of sequestered capital – capital whose quantities, usages and future yields are hidden from market participants – offers a richer and more straightforward explanation for this famous financial bubble than extant alternatives. Simply put, the underground planting of the tulip bulbs in 1636 blindfolded seventeenth-century Dutch speculators regarding the planted quantities and their development and future yields. The price boom began in mid November 1636, coinciding with the time of planting. The price collapse occurred in the first week of February 1637, coinciding with the time of bulb sprouting – signaling bulb quantities, development and future yields. Also consistent with our explanation is the initial price collapse location, in the Dutch city of Haarlem, where temperature and geography favored early sprouting and sprout visibility.

A previously unknown pricing anomaly existed for a few years in the late 1840s in the British government bond market, in which the larger and more liquid of two very large bonds was underpriced. None of the published mechanisms explains this phenomenon. It may be related to another pricing anomaly that existed for much of the nineteenth century in which terminable annuities were significantly underpriced relative to so-called ‘perpetual’ annuities that dominated the government bond market. The reasons for these mispricings seem to lie in the early Victorian culture, since the basic economic incentives as well as laws and institutions were essentially the familiar modern ones. This provides new perspectives on the origins and nature of modern corporate capitalism.

This article studies the relationship between the Irish and London stock markets over the period 1869 to 1929, using monthly data on capital gains. A bivariate GARCH model shows that there were significant volatility spillovers from the London to the Irish market, but not vice versa. This suggests that shocks originating in London were transmitted to Ireland, but that the reverse did not occur. Furthermore, the time-varying correlation indicates that the co-movement between London and Ireland declined during the Irish independence struggle and the establishment of the Irish Free State. The correlation appears to stabilise in the late 1920s.

The period from the 1950s to the late 1970s saw an almost uniform decline of cash-to-GDP ratios in industrial countries. A closer look at the German payment system suggests that the factor causing such a change was a shift towards cashless wage payments. In this period, in Germany, the branch network of banks expanded significantly and at the end of the period almost all economically active individuals had a current account. This change was triggered by rising wages and income. Rising wages increased the burden of weekly wage payments in cash, and rising income made the average earner more attractive for banks. Moreover, regulation and deregulation, by triggering both price and non-price competition, may also have played a role. Technological change was not an independent driver. In the 1950s, the number of giro accounts per German adult was comparable to the current situation in many developing countries. Yet, I argue that the German post-war experience does not provide a blueprint for most of these countries.