Historians claim that in the nineteenth century Catalan cotton manufacturers were giving informal credit to their clients, and were therefore unable to transfer this credit to the banking system. Such circumstances would have had a detrimental effect on the profitability of the cotton firms. Based on an analysis of the archives of several firms, as well as judicial and notary sources, we can confirm this state of affairs, but present a more optimistic interpretation of the system. Manufacturers were, in fact, acting as their customers bankers because they were in the best position to perform this function. They built up a good information structure, managed the credit risk efficiently and earned money from this activity.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia in its series Working Papers in Economics with number
189.
Length: 31 pages Date of creation: 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:bar:bedcje:2008189
Contact details of provider: Postal: Espai de Recerca en Economia, Facultat de Ciències Econòmiques. Tinent Coronel Valenzuela, Num 1-11 08034 Barcelona. Spain. Web page: http://www.ere.ub.es More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Espai de Recerca en Economia).
Related research
Keywords:
Find related papers by JEL classification: G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Mortgages L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913 G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: