Despite the diverse and developed nature of twentieth century U.S. and Canadian financial markets, the history of both economies is replete with claims of inefficiency and inadequacy among financial intermediaries, particularly the banking sectors. In Canada it has been argued that banks were oligopolistic and favoured an entrenched merchant class over industrialists. In the U.S. the unit banking system has been perceived as unstable and of an inefficiently small scale. This paper examines the experiences of a set of firms from a large and economically important manufacturing industry; primary steel production; in an effort to determine the impact differences in macro financial markets have had on micro financial decision making. We find statistically significant, but not necessarily economically important, relationships among national capital market characteristics, firms' financing decisions, and firms' capital costs.
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Paper provided by Queen's University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
1003.
Find related papers by JEL classification: N42 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913- N62 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913- G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
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