Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:14:58.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Interest Rate Effect of Dutch Money in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Stefan E. Oppers
Affiliation:
Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economic, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Abstract

It is generally recognized that the Dutch played a major part in financing British government deficits from the 1720s to the late 1770s. This article argues that even though the Dutch continued to hold large amounts of British debt after 1780, they stopped supplying new capital to the British and started a modest repatriation of some of their previous investments. A comparative econometric study of 3 percent consol yields during the two deficit-inducing wars Britain fought between 1750 and 1795 shows that as a result British interest rates became much more sensitive to increases in government borrowing.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Black, R. A., and Gilmore, C. G., “Crowding Out During Britain's Industrial Revolution,” this Journal, 50 (03 1990), pp. 109–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brezis, Elize, “International Capital Flows During the 18th Century: Did Holland Finance the British Revolution?” (Working Paper, Brandeis University, 1989).Google Scholar
Britain, , Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 35, Part 1 (1868/1869), pp. 136211.Google Scholar
Carter, A. C., “The Dutch and the English Public Debt in 1777,” Economica, 20 (05 1953), pp. 159–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, A. C., “Dutch Foreign Investment, 1738–1800,” Economica, 20 (11 1953), pp. 322–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crafts, N. F. R., “British Economic Growth, 1700–1850: Some Difficulties of Interpretation,” Explorations in Economic History, 24 (07 1987), pp. 245–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heim, Carol, and Mirowski, Philip, “Interest Rates and Crowding Out During Britain's Industrial Revolution,” this Journal, 47 (03 1987), pp. 117–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heim, Carol, and Mirowski, Philip, “Crowding Out: A Response to Black and Gilmore,” this Journal, 51 (09 1991), pp. 701–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keuchenius, W. M., De Inkomsten en Uitgaven der Bataafsche Republiek Voorgesteld in eene Nationaale Balans (Amsterdam, 1803).Google Scholar
Manger, J. B. Jr., Recherches sur les relations économiques entre la France et la Hollande pendant la Révolution Française (1785–1795) (Amsterdam, 1923).Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel, “Has the Industrial Revolution Been Crowded Out? Some Reflections on Crafts and Williamson,” Explorations in Economic History, 24 (07 1987), pp. 293319.Google Scholar
Neal, Larry, “A Tale of Two Revolutions: International Capital Flows 1789–1819” (Department of Economics Working Paper, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 1989).Google Scholar
O'Brien, P. K., “Government Revenue, 1793–1815—A Study in Fiscal and Financial Policy in the Wars Against France” (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1967).Google Scholar
Riley, J. C., International Government Finance and the Amsterdam Capital Market 1740–1815 (Cambridge, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, E. B., “English Prices and Public Finance, 1660–1822,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 20 (02 1938), pp. 2137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velde, François, and Weir, David, “The Financial Market and Government Debt Policy in France, 1746–1793,” this Journal, 52 (03 1992), pp. 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey G., “Why Was British Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?” this Journal, 44 (09 1984), pp. 687712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey G., “Debating the British Industrial Revolution,” Explorations in Economic History, 24 (07 1987), pp. 269–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey G., “New Views on the Impact of the French Wars on Accumulation in Britain” (Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 1480, 1990).Google Scholar
Wilson, C., Anglo-Dutch Commerce & Finance in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1941).Google Scholar