Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Contributors
- List of Charts and Tables
- Introduction
- 1 The Financial Administration of North Hanseatic Cities in the Late Middle Ages: Development, Organization and Politics
- 2 Government Debts and Credit Markets in Renaissance Italy
- 3 Government Debts and Financial Markets in Castile between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
- 4 Government Debt and Financial Markets: Exploring Pro-Cycle Effects in Northern Italy during the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries
- 5 Government Policies and the Development of Financial Markets: The Case of Madrid in the Seventeenth Century
- 6 The Role Played by Short-Term Credit in the Spanish Monarchy's Finances
- 7 From Subordination to Autonomy: Public Debt Policies and the Creation of a Self-Ruled Financial Market in the Kingdom of Naples in the Long Run (1500–1800)
- 8 Public Debt in the Papal States: Financial Market and Government Strategies in the Long Run (Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries)
- 9 Towards a New Public Credit Policy in Eighteenth-Century Spain: the Introduction of the Tesorería Mayor de Guerra (1703–6)
- 10 French Public Finance between 1683 and 1726
- 11 Long-Term War Loans and Market Expectations in England, 1743–50
- 12 Mercantilist Institutions for the Pursuit of Power with Profit: The Management of Britain's National Debt, 1756–1815
- 13 Italian Government Debt Sustainability in the Long Run, 1861–2000
- 14 Times of Wasteful Abundance: The Apogee of the Fiscal State in the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s
- Conclusion: Final Remarks
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion: Final Remarks
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Contributors
- List of Charts and Tables
- Introduction
- 1 The Financial Administration of North Hanseatic Cities in the Late Middle Ages: Development, Organization and Politics
- 2 Government Debts and Credit Markets in Renaissance Italy
- 3 Government Debts and Financial Markets in Castile between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
- 4 Government Debt and Financial Markets: Exploring Pro-Cycle Effects in Northern Italy during the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries
- 5 Government Policies and the Development of Financial Markets: The Case of Madrid in the Seventeenth Century
- 6 The Role Played by Short-Term Credit in the Spanish Monarchy's Finances
- 7 From Subordination to Autonomy: Public Debt Policies and the Creation of a Self-Ruled Financial Market in the Kingdom of Naples in the Long Run (1500–1800)
- 8 Public Debt in the Papal States: Financial Market and Government Strategies in the Long Run (Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries)
- 9 Towards a New Public Credit Policy in Eighteenth-Century Spain: the Introduction of the Tesorería Mayor de Guerra (1703–6)
- 10 French Public Finance between 1683 and 1726
- 11 Long-Term War Loans and Market Expectations in England, 1743–50
- 12 Mercantilist Institutions for the Pursuit of Power with Profit: The Management of Britain's National Debt, 1756–1815
- 13 Italian Government Debt Sustainability in the Long Run, 1861–2000
- 14 Times of Wasteful Abundance: The Apogee of the Fiscal State in the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s
- Conclusion: Final Remarks
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The papers presented in this volume and in the International Economic History Congress (IEHC) session that preceded it constitute an important contribution to the study of governments, debts and financial markets in Europe. They point to the usefulness of studying these phenomena in comparative perspective, both across a broad set of states and over a lengthy time span. The papers also suggest the importance of drawing insights from historical cases and episodes that are often overlooked in general histories of the evolution of public credit in Europe. My concluding remarks for this volume will draw on those presented in the 2006 IEHC session. They represent observations by a political scientist who is grateful for the opportunity to comment on work by a respected group of historians and economists. There are many issues upon which these papers shed light. One of the most important, and that upon which I will focus my remarks, involves the following puzzle – why, given that long-term borrowing has obvious advantages for states, do we observe so much variation between states in terms of the date at which a long-term date was created? Likewise, why, once states have created a debt, do we also observe such considerable variation in the terms on which they borrowed, or more generally in their subsequent success at obtaining access to credit?
Economic Growth and the Imperatives of War
A first logical place to look for an answer to this puzzle is with a simple story emphasizing the imperatives of war and the effect of economic growth. Demand for war finance prompted states to develop mechanisms for borrowing long term, and it will surprise few readers to see that the imperatives of war were crucial to the development of a public debt in many of the cases considered in this volume. The varying intensity of inter-state competition in different European regions might help to explain why some states established long-term debts earlier than others.
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- Government Debts and Financial Markets in Europe , pp. 231 - 238Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014