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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgments
- 1 Financial innovations and crises: The view backwards from Northern Rock
- 2 An economic explanation of the early Bank of Amsterdam, debasement, bills of exchange and the emergence of the first central bank
- 3 With a view to hold: The emergence of institutional investors on the Amsterdam securities market during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
- 4 Was John Law's System a bubble? The Mississippi Bubble revisited
- 5 Sir George Caswall vs. the Duke of Portland: Financial contracts and litigation in the wake of the South Sea Bubble
- 6 The bell jar: Commercial interest rates between two revolutions, 1688–1789
- 7 Comparing the UK and US financial systems, 1790–1830
- 8 Natural experiments in financial reform in the nineteenth century: The Davis and Gallman analysis
- 9 Regulatory changes and the development of the US banking market, 1870–1914: A study of profit rates and risk in national banks
- 10 Anticipating the stock market crash of 1929: The view from the floor of the stock exchange
- 11 The development of “non-traditional” open market operations: Lessons from FDR's silver purchase program
- 12 The interwar shocks to US–Cuban trade relations: A view through sugar company stock price data
- 13 Central bank reaction functions during the inter-war gold standard: A view from the periphery
- 14 When do stock market booms occur? The macroeconomic and policy environments of twentieth century booms
- 15 Lessons from history for the twenty-first century
- Index
- References
3 - With a view to hold: The emergence of institutional investors on the Amsterdam securities market during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgments
- 1 Financial innovations and crises: The view backwards from Northern Rock
- 2 An economic explanation of the early Bank of Amsterdam, debasement, bills of exchange and the emergence of the first central bank
- 3 With a view to hold: The emergence of institutional investors on the Amsterdam securities market during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
- 4 Was John Law's System a bubble? The Mississippi Bubble revisited
- 5 Sir George Caswall vs. the Duke of Portland: Financial contracts and litigation in the wake of the South Sea Bubble
- 6 The bell jar: Commercial interest rates between two revolutions, 1688–1789
- 7 Comparing the UK and US financial systems, 1790–1830
- 8 Natural experiments in financial reform in the nineteenth century: The Davis and Gallman analysis
- 9 Regulatory changes and the development of the US banking market, 1870–1914: A study of profit rates and risk in national banks
- 10 Anticipating the stock market crash of 1929: The view from the floor of the stock exchange
- 11 The development of “non-traditional” open market operations: Lessons from FDR's silver purchase program
- 12 The interwar shocks to US–Cuban trade relations: A view through sugar company stock price data
- 13 Central bank reaction functions during the inter-war gold standard: A view from the periphery
- 14 When do stock market booms occur? The macroeconomic and policy environments of twentieth century booms
- 15 Lessons from history for the twenty-first century
- Index
- References
Summary
Institutional investors such as insurance companies and mutual funds are a prominent feature of today's financial systems. To some extent they serve as a hallmark of modernity and as such Richard Sylla has included them in his list of six features of successful financial revolutions inaugurating economic leadership. Sylla did not specify his reasons for doing so, but we may summarize the importance of institutional investors as, on the one hand, providing access to the securities market for savers otherwise unable to enter it, and on the other hand as providing a ready demand for secure investments suited to fund long-term liabilities.
Institutional investors in themselves are an old phenomenon in Europe. Already by the late Middle Ages ecclesiastical institutions derived income from the land and houses which they owned. In several parts of early modern Europe revenue from real estate contributed to the funding of hospitals and orphanages. Investment in financial assets remained limited, however. Only in sophisticated financial markets, i.e., Venice, Genoa, and Amsterdam, did charities have portfolios with a considerable volume of public and private securities. Until the eighteenth century, when the first joint-stock insurance companies were created in London, there were no large insurance firms or pension funds either. Non-permanent syndicates of underwriters remained the norm throughout pre-modern Europe.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Origins and Development of Financial Markets and InstitutionsFrom the Seventeenth Century to the Present, pp. 71 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
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