When it comes to financing real estate purchases, mortgages have been around for centuries. The first loans called mortgages developed in the middle ages; the word itself comes from Norman law books as “mort gage” or “dead pledge.” The word dead here refers not to any human death but to the fact that medieval mortgages…
The flow of information is an important part of any financial system. Whether it be in the agglomeration of important institutions in a single financial center or the communications technology used, the need for information has left its mark on financial services. For centuries, business could only be done as quickly as a courier’s legs…
Much as it was for the country as a whole, the middle of the 19th century was a formative era for American finance. The Era of Free Banking was a period of very little regulation of banks and saw the founding of many of them. But two of today’s most massive American financial firms, Wells…
Like almost everything else, access to banking services is often unappreciated by those who have it. Yet, it is so important to economic development and improving the standard of living of ordinary people that it is often a key policy focus of developing countries, and not just their governments. From microfinance to fintech, new approaches…
Financial crises have been around longer than many realize. Imagine reading that the stock market plunges by 50%, recession follows, investment firms and banks fail across the country, and the government seeks to get to the bottom of what happened. Could that be describing the Great Depression or the most recent recession? In either case,…
In 1801, Robert Livingston, the U.S. Minister to France, was sent to Paris to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. The purchase of the entire territory of Louisiana, all 800,000 square miles of it, was still two years in the future. In 1801, the territory was in the midst of being transferred from Spain, which…
Up until the year 2000, stock exchanges in the US quoted share prices in eighths. That meant the smallest increment that a stock could move was one-eighth of a dollar, nothing less. In the normal course of a trading day, one share of FedEx would trade hands at $14.125 or $14.25 but nothing in between.…
Ever since late medieval Italian city-states sold bonds to finance wars, the availability of debt financing has been crucial to the war-fighting ability of almost every country. However, not until the 20th century did their financing become a public affair. War Bonds played a significant role in civilian participation in the war effort during both…
Those who know a bit about New York’s financial past have almost certainly heard of the Buttonwood Agreement. In 1792, two dozen stockbrokers signed a now famous pact agreeing to trade directly with each other, bypassing any middlemen, under a Buttonwood tree on Wall Street. This agreement standardized trading between them and is thus thought…
