IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/fihrev/v21y2014i02p191-212_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mortgages for machinery: credit and industrial investment in pre-World War I Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Cortes, Gustavo S.
  • Marcondes, Renato L.
  • Diaz, Maria Dolores M.

Abstract

How could a primitive credit market finance the early industrialisation of an underdeveloped economy? To answer this question, we use a hand-collected data set of mortgage loans raised by industrial firms in the city of São Paulo during the period 1866-1914. These mortgages were debt obligations collateralised by land, improvements, machinery and equipment. We argue that the mortgage credit market was a key source of funding for early industrial investments in Brazil. We find that industries were mainly funded by non-banking and domestic agents. The empirical evidence suggests that mortgages were an important proxy for industrial investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Cortes, Gustavo S. & Marcondes, Renato L. & Diaz, Maria Dolores M., 2014. "Mortgages for machinery: credit and industrial investment in pre-World War I Brazil," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 191-212, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:fihrev:v:21:y:2014:i:02:p:191-212_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0968565014000110/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Triner, Gail D. & Wandschneider, Kirsten, 2005. "The Baring Crisis and the Brazilian Encilhamento, 1889 1891: An Early Example of Contagion Among Emerging Capital Markets," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(02), pages 199-225, October.
    2. Colin M. Lewis, 1999. "Industry and Industrialisation: what has been accomplished, what needs to be done," Anais do III Congresso Brasileiro de História Econômica e 4ª Conferência Internacional de História de Empresas [Proceedings of the 3rd Brazilian Congress of Economic History and the 4th International 035, ABPHE - Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em História Econômica (Brazilian Economic History Society).
    3. Stone, Irving, 1977. "British Direct and Portfolio Investment in Latin America Before 1914," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(3), pages 690-722, September.
    4. Musacchio,Aldo, 2015. "Experiments in Financial Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107514782, January.
    5. Haber, Stephen H., 1991. "Industrial Concentration and the Capital Markets: A Comparative Study of Brazil, Mexico, and the United States, 1830–1930," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(3), pages 559-580, September.
    6. Eichengreen, Barry, 1984. "Mortgage Interest Rates in the Populist Era," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 995-1015, December.
    7. Cull, Robert & Davis, Lance E. & Lamoreaux, Naomi R. & Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 2006. "Historical financing of small- and medium-size enterprises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 3017-3042, November.
    8. Snowden, Kenneth A., 1987. "Mortgage Rates and American Capital Market Development in the Late Nineteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(3), pages 671-691, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Howard Bodenhorn, 2016. "Two Centuries of Finance and Growth in the United States, 1790-1980," Working Papers id:11352, eSocialSciences.
    2. Richard S.Grossman, 2017. "Beresford’s Revenge: British equity holdings in Latin America, 1869-1929," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2017-003, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    3. Grossman, Richard, 2017. "Beresford’s Revenge: British equity holdings in Latin America, 1869-1929," CEPR Discussion Papers 12042, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Joseph P. Kaboski & Trevon D. Logan, 2011. "Factor Endowments and the Returns to Skill: New Evidence from the American Past," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(2), pages 111-152.
    5. della Paolera, Gerardo & Taylor, Alan M., 2013. "Sovereign debt in Latin America, 1820-1913," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(2), pages 173-217, September.
    6. Macchiavello, Rocco, 2010. "Vertical integration and investor protection in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 162-172, November.
    7. Gerardo della Paolera & Xavier H. Duran Amorocho & Aldo Musacchio, 2018. "The Industrialization of South America Revisited: Evidence from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, 1890-2010," NBER Working Papers 24345, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Grossman, Richard S. & Imai, Masami, 2008. "The evolution of a national banking market in pre-war Japan," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 17-29, January.
    9. Stephen Haber, 2008. "Differential Paths of Financial Development: Evidence from New World Economies," NBER Chapters, in: Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth: Geography, Institutions, and the Knowledge Economy, pages 89-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Hugh Rockoff, 2003. "Prodigals and Projecture: An Economic History of Usury Laws in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900," NBER Working Papers 9742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. John Landon-Lane & Hugh Rockoff, 2004. "Monetary Policy and Regional Interest Rates in the United States, 1880-2002," NBER Working Papers 10924, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Luis Felipe Zegarra, 2015. "Political Instability, Institutions and Private Capital Markets in Lima, Peru," Working Papers 39, Peruvian Economic Association.
    13. Gendreau, Brian C., 1999. "Risk Structure of Postbellum U.S. Deposit Rates," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 409-427, October.
    14. Kris J. Mitchener & Mari Ohnuki, 2008. "Institutions, Competition, and Capital Market Integration in Japan," NBER Working Papers 14090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Alexander Klein & Karl Gunnar Persson & Paul Sharp, 2023. "Populism and the first wave of globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US presidential election," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 163-202.
    16. Eric Hilt, 2014. "History of American Corporate Governance: Law, Institutions, and Politics," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, December.
    17. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.
    18. Luis Alfonso Dau & Aya S. Chacar & Marjorie A. Lyles & Jiatao Li, 2022. "Informal institutions and international business: Toward an integrative research agenda," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 985-1010, August.
    19. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    20. Efraim Benmelech & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2010. "The Political Economy of Financial Regulation: Evidence from U.S. State Usury Laws in the 19th Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1029-1073, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N26 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • N66 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • N86 - Economic History - - Micro-Business History - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:fihrev:v:21:y:2014:i:02:p:191-212_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/fhr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.