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Risky Institutions: Political Regimes and the Cost of Public Borrowing in Early Modern Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2014

David Chilosi
David Chilosi*
Affiliation:
Research Officer, Economic History Department, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

By analyzing a newly compiled data set of interest rates on public annuities in early modern Italy, this article finds that the cost of borrowing fell in spite of growing debts and stagnating fiscal revenues. Feudalism and clerical interference increased the cost of borrowing, while parliaments, wars, and centralized fiscal institutions mattered little. The constitutional representation of creditors may have meant significant markups for republican oligarchs. These results cast doubts on the claim that the growth of absolutism was at the root of Italy's economic decline.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 887 - 915
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2014 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding the research, Olivier Accominotti, Giovanni Federico, Christelle Rabier, Alexandra Sapoznik, Max-Stephan Schulze, Oliver Volckart, Patrick Wallis, the editor, and the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on drafts of the article, Mauro Carboni, Matteo di Tullio, Regina Grafe, Luciano Pezzolo, and the other participants to the “Public Resources and State Building in Europe” conference at the Sorbonne University in Paris for helpful suggestions, and Giuseppe Felloni and the staff of the State Archive of Genoa for their kindness.

References

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