This bibliography covers publications that appeared during 2005 and 2004 when they were not known before the deadline of last year's bibliography. In that case the year of publication is mentioned in the citation.

This article explores long-term trends in risks and returns within central banking using Danmarks Nationalbank as a case study. Core earnings generated by the basic functions and the associated risks typical of a central bank accounted on average for most of the Nationalbank's financial returns over the past 175 years. For a long period, this was the result of a passive risk-management strategy under which financial risks and returns just reflected the various functions performed by the Nationalbank and not the outcome of a deliberate decision-making process. A formalised and holistic risk-management framework was introduced only in the 1990s.

This article discusses historical evidence from the Potosi mint and Massachusetts Bay mint that illustrates the importance of the resource endowment (in this case silver) for the provision of small change. We show that the availability of silver was fundamental in shaping incentives. The relative scarcity of silver in Massachusetts Bay contributed to the small scale of the mint's operations, and implied that neither the monetary authority nor the mintmaster faced a significant tradeoff between drawing seigniorage from the mint and the production of small-denomination coins. In contrast, in the Viceroyalty of Peru, the abundance of silver, and the consequent large level of production of the mint's heavy peso coin, heightened the tradeoff between the fiscal and monetary objectives of the coinage. We suggest that these incentives negatively affected the production of fractionary coinage in the Peruvian viceroyalty, whereas in Massachusetts Bay the production of small-denomination coins was the norm.

This article traces the origins of the ‘national bank’ in the Gold Coast. It shows how the Colonial authorities perverted the demand by Africans for a special kind of bank to aid their development. The Colonial Office preferred and ensured the establishment of an orthodox institution, which had little to give with regard to Africans' demand for developmental credit. This was because it believed that such development institutions would be unhelpful to, arguably, uncreditworthy Africans. This attitude, it is argued, represented a setback to the Gold Coast's development. Either such an institution, as demanded by Africans, would have helped the colony's advance, or Africans would have learnt earlier that the concept of development was more fundamental than setting up a ‘national bank’.

This article analyses trends in the development of the stock exchange in Jakarta between its stepwise institutionalisation since 1898 and its closure in 1942. The article contributes to literature on the significance of stock markets in the process of mobilising external capital for investment by private enterprise in emerging economies. It finds that the brokers participating in the stock exchange traded shares and bonds of companies operating in Indonesia and registered in Indonesia or in the Netherlands. Many of these securities were also traded on the much larger stock exchange in Amsterdam. Although formally independent, both securities markets were integrated. Based on estimates of relatively high market capitalisation during 1901–40, the article concludes that the Jakarta and Amsterdam stock exchanges together contributed significantly to the mobilisation of private investment and the development of private enterprise in Indonesia.

This article discusses the dividend strategy adopted by Norwegian commercial banks before 1914. Based on a unique data set covering all banks in the period 1882– 1913 as well as six other institutions for the pre-1882 period, I identify the existence of a strong bias towards the payment of high and stable dividends to shareholders. The origins of such bias lie in the specific institutional set-up of commercial banking, the expectations of shareholders and the absence of developed securities markets. Combined with a strong preference for high gearing, this feature contributed to increase the fragility of the Norwegian banking system.

The period from the 1950s to the late 1970s saw an almost uniform decline of cash-to-GDP ratios in industrial countries. A closer look at the German payment system suggests that the factor causing such a change was a shift towards cashless wage payments. In this period, in Germany, the branch network of banks expanded significantly and at the end of the period almost all economically active individuals had a current account. This change was triggered by rising wages and income. Rising wages increased the burden of weekly wage payments in cash, and rising income made the average earner more attractive for banks. Moreover, regulation and deregulation, by triggering both price and non-price competition, may also have played a role. Technological change was not an independent driver. In the 1950s, the number of giro accounts per German adult was comparable to the current situation in many developing countries. Yet, I argue that the German post-war experience does not provide a blueprint for most of these countries.

Recent contributions on ‘financial repression’ and ‘money illusion’ have referred to Maynard Keynes's How to Pay for the War as a supporting document. This article discusses whether Keynes prescribed policies of ‘financial repression’ that were implemented in the United Kingdom, and other countries, following World War II. It seems reasonable that Keynes's writings were instrumental in translating British monetary experiences of the 1920s and 1930s into expectations of policymakers during and after World War II, including a belief in ‘money illusion’ that suggested the use of inflation for driving down real interest rates of public bonds. If this was the case, How to Pay for the War could indeed provide an important explanation for the why and when of ‘financial repression’. This article argues that How to Pay for the War only partly provided support for a policy of ‘financial repression’, and none for using inflation as a ‘tax gatherer’ to the detriment of domestic savers in general. Crediting Keynes as a source for widespread ‘money illusion’ is also out of line with the historical record.

This article uses the leading firms of the German chemical industry as a case study to provide a detailed example of how companies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century used internal financing as an instrument of corporate finance. It traces the at first diverse significance of internal financing for the industry and identifies two moments of market concentration that triggered a convergence of corporate finance by a harmonisation of accounting standards that were not predefined by legal frameworks. The article argues that secret reserves and further ways of internal financing were key components of this harmonisation. The industry-wide creation of secret reserves cloaked the companies’ actual financial strength from outsiders who were merely left with an image of the respective firms that was carefully drafted by companies’ managers.

Adaptation to the consequences of climate change has developed into a growing field of concern for the insurance business. However, climate-related risk is not entirely a new field in insurance. Historically, a large number of insurance organisational choices and strategies have been used to mitigate the financial impact of extreme events and uncertainties associated with climate change. Taking the case of forests in Sweden, this article reviews the ways in which climate-related risks such as storm/wind and fire risks have been assured. The study shows that climate-related risks have generally increased over time and that major hazard events have been decisive for strategy and organisation choices. Twentieth-century developments show that corporate insurance coverage increased due to higher levels of anticipated risk, while self-insurance and public insurance were reduced. However, in more recent times the expansion of corporate insurance has stagnated. Increased premiums and tighter terms following historically extreme weather events have led government and forest owners to assume more climate risks.

This article contributes to the literature analysing the role of public banks in crises. Taking the case of Spain, it analyses the behaviour of the public bank (ICO) between 1971 and 2015, specifically during two crises: the crisis of the 1970s, when Spain was an economically backward country coming out of a dictatorship; and that of 2008–13, by which time it had integrated into the international economy. Public credit underwent sweeping privatization in 1991, which translated into major downsizing. From then on, a gradual process of modernization began, mainly characterized by institutional changes in governance and access to resources. Our results indicate that public and private credit behave differently during recessions. Private credit always remains closely synchronized with the business cycle, but public credit less so.

Innovations in the world of alternative finance such as online consumer lending, fund-raising platforms and cryptocurrencies are proceeding apace. In this article, we examine three historical case studies of newly emerged non-bank financial markets and discuss the possible implications for today's alternative finance markets. The first insight is that the private sector can generally be counted on to meet previously unmet needs. Moneylenders filled a gap unaddressed by the banking system of the day. Junior market IPOs provided access to funds for smaller companies that might otherwise have struggled to raise external finance. Private currencies replaced sovereign coins in transactions at various points in history. The second insight, however, is that new financial markets and instruments eventually attract the attention of regulators. Finally, these examples are a warning to industry not to take for granted that an initially laissez-faire regulatory regime precludes a stronger response at some point in the future. In all three cases, tougher regulation – in some cases even to the point of shutting down the products and markets concerned – arrived after long periods of observation and deliberation by the state.

Kathleen E. A. Monteith, Competition between Barclays Bank (DCO) and the Canadian banks in the West Indies, 1926–45

This article examines the extent to which collusion ruled out competition in banking, and assesses the nature and impact of this competition in order to ascertain the degree to which Barclays Bank (DCO) faced any significant challenge to its position within the region. It is shown that the rigidity which is assumed to be characteristic of collusive agreements was not present, and that competition existed in the commercial banking market in the West Indies during this period. It is also shown that non-price competition existed in many forms, and was capable of leading to a bank's position being usurped by another.

This article surveys the monetary history of Koryŏ from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. During the first century of the dynasty, Koryŏ was at war with the Liao, prohibited trade with the enemy and pursued a policy of protecting its metal reserves. During the ban on metallic coins, rice and cloth served as commodity monies, ensuring price stability in a phase of sustained growth of the rural economy. A second phase began after the victory over the Liao in 1018. Backed by military strength, the government issued iron, bronze and silver currencies to facilitate international trade. The Koryŏ ‘silver vase’ currency, which circulated for three centuries, partly bridges the ‘black hole’ in East Asian monetary history from the Late Tang to the Ming period. The intrinsic value of the metallic currencies in conjunction with state issuance provided monetary stability. In turn monetary instability characterised the late Koryŏ, when the country came under the influence of the Mongol Yuan. The destabilising effect brought about by the introduction of Yuan paper money demonetarised the economy. By framing monetary history within a wider perspective of struggles for sovereignty and political hegemony, the article allows a better understanding of domestic and regional dynamics in East Asia.

This study explores parliamentary reforms related to the financial accountability of banks following the 1825–6 and 1836–7 financial crises in England. An appraisal of nineteenth-century parliamentary Hansard transcripts reveals early banking legislative pursuits. The study observes the laissez-faire and interventionist approaches towards the banking enactments of 1826, 1833 and 1844 that underpin the transformation of financial accountability during this era. The Bank Notes Act 1826 imposed financial accountability on the Bank of England by requiring the mandatory disclosure of notes issued. The Bank Notes Act 1833 extended this requirement to all other banks. The Bank Charter Act 1833 increased the financial accountability of the Bank of England by requiring it to provide an account of bullion and securities belonging to the governor and company, as well as deposits held by the bank. Thereafter, the Joint Stock Banks Act 1844 pioneered the regular publication of assets and liabilities and communication of the balance sheet and profit and loss account to shareholders. State intervention in the financial accountability of banks during the period from 1825 to 1845 appears to have been cumulative.

In 1786, the Van Staphorst brothers, America's Dutch investment bank, entered the French office of the Director General of Finance, intent on making an offer for a portion of France's holdings of American bonds. Unknowingly, their offer set off a bidding war that could have ended with poorly capitalized American financial adventurers owing a large portion of bonds which could threaten the fragile health of American credit. At the eleventh hour, the Van Staphorsts conjured up a bold, unprecedented, scheme to persuade the French that it would be unnecessary to sell their American bonds at discounted prices.