Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-s9k8s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-07T13:26:24.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

International Trade and the Evolution of the American Capital Market, 1888–1911

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

William Clark
Affiliation:
The authors are assistant professors in the Division of Economics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019.
Charlie Turner
Affiliation:
The authors are assistant professors in the Division of Economics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019.

Abstract

We examine the relationship between international trade and regional American credit markets. The evidence presented suggests that foreign payment flows had a significant effect on the level of interest rates in the East North Central, West North Central, Pacific, and Southern regions of the United States.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1985

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

1 Davis, Lance E., “The Investment Market, 1870–1914: The Evolution of a National Market,” this JOURNAL, 25 (09 1965), pp. 355–93;Google ScholarSylla, Richard, “Federal Policy, Banking Market Structure, and Capital Mobilization in the United States, 1863–1913,” this JOURNAL, 29 (12 1969), pp. 657–86;Google ScholarJames, John, “The Development of the National Money Market, 1893–1911,” this JOURNAL, 36 (12 1976), pp. 878–97.Google Scholar

2 Davis, “The Investment Market,” p. 392.Google Scholar

3 Sylla, “Federal Policy,” p. 685.Google Scholar

4 James, “The National Money Market,” p. 897.Google Scholar

5 James, John, “The Development of the National Money Market, 1893–1911,” this JOURNAL, 36 (12 1976).Google Scholar

6 Vedder, Richard, The American Economy in Historical Perspective (Belmont, Cal., 1976), p. 209.Google Scholar

7 James, John, “The Development of the National Money Market, 1893–1911,” this JOURNAL, 36 (12 1976)., p. 210.Google Scholar

8 James, John, “The Development of the National Money Market, 1893–1911,” this JOURNAL, 36 (12 1976)., p. 212.Google Scholar

9 U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), pp. 864, 898.Google Scholar

10 James, John, “The Development of the National Money Market, 1893–1911,” this JOURNAL, 36 (12 1976)., pp. 890, 898.Google Scholar

11 Goodhart, C. A. E., The New York Money Market and the Finance of Trade, 1900–1913 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), p. 55.Google Scholar

12 Frequently, and especially in the South, the money shipped out to pay for the exports ended up being held in the form of currency rather than deposits. See Laughlin, J. Laurence, “A National Reserve Association and the Movement of Cotton in the South,” Journal of Political Economy, 20 (02 1912), p. 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Data on the number of national, state, and private banks derived from Barnett, George E., State Banks and Trust Companies since the Passage of the National-Bank Act (Washington, D.C., 1911), pp. 201–3.Google Scholar

14 These figures were graciously provided to the authors by John James.Google Scholar

15 Bank clearings outside New York City are presumably good indicators of general business conditions because they are highly correlated with changes in output, while New York bank clearings are “polluted” with many purely financial transactions from the securities markets.Google Scholar See James, John, “Banking Market Structure, Risk, and the Pattern of Local Interest Rates in the United States, 1893–1911,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 58 (11 1976), p. 455.Google Scholar

16 Davis, “The Investment Market,” p. 360.Google Scholar

17 U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics, pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

18 James, John, “Banking Market Structure, Risk, and the Pattern of Local Interest Rates in the United States, 1893–1911,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 58 (11 1976)., 867.Google Scholar

19 The i regions are defined as: South = Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee; East North Central = Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri; West North Central = North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma; Pacific = Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona; Northeast = Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.Google Scholar

20 Shaw, Edward S., Financial Deepening in Economic Development (New York, 1973), p. 197.Google Scholar

21 For a more complete description of the relationship between regional balances of payments and interest rates see Yeager, Leland, International Monetary Relations (New York, 1966), pp. 7880.Google Scholar