In this paper, I investigate international financial market behavior over the past three centuries and compare the degree of integration across various important subperiods. This is the first time that so temporally extensive a comparison has been attempted. What the paper shows is that integrated markets of one sort or another have been the rule rather than exception over this exceedingly long span of years. The integration process, however, has been a discontinuous one. It has been interrupted by major wars and their after effects, and in the case of the interwar years by the severe economic shocks of that era and governments' reactions to them. In each instance, however, integration began anew. It did so, moreover, quite spontaneously. It was not something either planned, or otherwise orchestrated from on high. In finance as elsewhere, the prospect of gains from trade exerts a powerful force and that evidently was sufficient to keep the integration process going through the many adversities of the past several centuries.
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.
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.: