The Global Financial System 1750 – 2000
Larry AllenTraces the evolution of the highly integrated global financial system from 1750 to the present. This book examines the corporate form of business organization in the eighteenth century that saw an explosion of growth in the nineteenth, which facilitated the international movement of capital.
This book traces the evolution of the highly integrated global financial system from 1750 to the present. It examines the corporate form of business organization in the eighteenth century that saw an explosion of growth in the nineteenth, which facilitated the international movement of capital. The author also deals with the parallel growth of financial markets and explains how the need to finance public debts paved the way for stock markets as well as outlining the role of private merchant bankers, who originated as international bankers with family-run offices accross Europe. He charts the development of banks into public corporations and follows the evolution of modern paper money, explaining the emergence of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. While tracing the development of foreign-exchange markets and the history of trading blocs, the book also examines how economic powers such as Britain and France used access to capital to wield power in less-developed parts of the world. Finally, an history of financial crises is presented, revealing how economic shocks reverberate from one country to another today through the global financial network.
Traces the evolution of the highly integrated global financial system from 1750 to the present. This book examines the corporate form of business organization in the eighteenth century that saw an explosion of growth in the nineteenth, which facilitated the international movement of capital.
This book traces the evolution of the highly integrated global financial system from 1750 to the present. It examines the corporate form of business organization in the eighteenth century that saw an explosion of growth in the nineteenth, which facilitated the international movement of capital. The author also deals with the parallel growth of financial markets and explains how the need to finance public debts paved the way for stock markets as well as outlining the role of private merchant bankers, who originated as international bankers with family-run offices accross Europe. He charts the development of banks into public corporations and follows the evolution of modern paper money, explaining the emergence of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. While tracing the development of foreign-exchange markets and the history of trading blocs, the book also examines how economic powers such as Britain and France used access to capital to wield power in less-developed parts of the world. Finally, an history of financial crises is presented, revealing how economic shocks reverberate from one country to another today through the global financial network.
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This is an enjoyable, easy-to-read book and Allen effortlessly weaves a pattern from the multiple strands that have made the global economy … an excellent general economic history and makes fascinating reading.
'The Irish Times
Preface
Introduction
1. The Coming of the Corporation
2. The Making of Financial Markets
3. Gold and Silver: Aristocrats of Monetary Standards
4. The Triumph of Paper Money
5. The Passage from Free Banking to Central Banking
6. The Birth of World Currencies
7. The Road to Flexible Exchange Rates
8. The Evolution of International Banking
9. The Paths of Foreign Investment
10. The Struggle for Free trade
11. The Vicissitudes of Capitalism
12. The Age of Financial Integration Begins
13. In the Shadow of the Global Financial System
References
Bibliography
Index
Larry Allen is Professor of Economics at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, and the author of Encyclopedia of Money (1999), ABC-CLIO World History Companion to Capitalism (1998), The Global Financial System 1750-2000 (Reaktion, 2001) and The Global Economic System Since 1945 (Reaktion, 2005)
