'Home Biases', 19th Century Style
Abstract
This paper discusses the existence of 'home' biases in the 19th century global capital market, whereby colonies appear to have received a 'disproportionate' amount of capital from their metropolis. Starting from a discussion of the Bulow Rogoff (1989) problem, we argue that imperial links provided a natural institutional framework to make pre-commitment credible by ensuring an adequate degree of willingness to pay. This was not because imperial rule provided coercion or punishment, but rather because it supplied a legal framework that effectively suppressed the « sovereign » nature of colonial debts. We conclude that the greater facility with which capital migrated in the 19th century has much to do with the fact that colonies were more akin to the 'regions' of modern countriesDownload Info
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Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5398.Length:
Date of creation: Dec 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5398
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Related research
Keywords: colonies; home bias; Lucas paradox; willingness to pay;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
- N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2006-01-24 (All new papers)
- NEP-HIS-2006-01-24 (Business, Economic & Financial History)
- NEP-HPE-2006-01-24 (History & Philosophy of Economics)
References
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- Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2000.
"The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?,"
NBER Working Papers
7777, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2001. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 339-412 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2001. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," International Trade 0012003, EconWPA.
- Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff., 2000. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C00-112, University of California at Berkeley.
- Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2000. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt0sx02651, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
- Michael D. Bordo & Marc Flandreau, 2001.
"Core, Periphery, Exchange Rate Regimes, and Globalization,"
NBER Working Papers
8584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Michael D. Bordo & Marc Flandreau, 2003. "Core, Periphery, Exchange Rate Regimes, and Globalization," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 417-472 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Bordo, Michael D & Flandreau, Marc, 2001. "Core, Periphery, Exchange Rate Regimes and Globalization," CEPR Discussion Papers 3077, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Michael A. Clemens & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2004. "Wealth bias in the first global capital market boom, 1870-1913," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 304-337, 04.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Accominotti, Olivier & Flandreau, Marc & Rezzik, Riad & Zumer, Frédéric, 2008. "Black Man’s Burden: Measured Philanthropy in the British Empire, 1880-1913," CEPR Discussion Papers 6811, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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