IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v186y2021i3d10.1007_s11127-019-00709-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public perceptions and bond markets during the Great War: the case of a neutral country

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph A. Schaltegger

    (University of Lucerne
    University of St. Gallen)

  • Lukas A. Schmid

    (University of Lucerne)

Abstract

Neutrality during World War I was not assured but depended on the ability of a neutral state to adjust to the major belligerent powers’ interests. How did Switzerland manage to adhere to its neutrality policy under those circumstances? This paper analyzes contemporary perceptions of neutrality by means of a structural break analysis. According to historiography Switzerland was endangered from within rather than by foreign actions. The analysis based on a newly assembled database supports this assessment in parts. In the bondholders’ view, Switzerland’s neutrality was most threatened by the events leading up to the general strike in November 1918.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph A. Schaltegger & Lukas A. Schmid, 2021. "Public perceptions and bond markets during the Great War: the case of a neutral country," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 537-561, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:186:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-019-00709-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-019-00709-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-019-00709-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-019-00709-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Waldenström, Daniel & Frey, Bruno S., 2008. "Did nordic countries recognize the gathering storm of World War II? Evidence from the bond markets," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 107-126, April.
    2. Peter Bernholz, 2005. "Die Bedeutung der Geschichte für die Wirtschafts‐wissenschaften und der ökonomischen Theorie für die Geschichtsforschung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 6(2), pages 131-150, May.
    3. Olga Christodoulaki & Haeran Cho & Piotr Fryzlewicz, 2012. "A reflection of history: fluctuations in Greek sovereign risk between 1914 and 1929," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 16(4), pages 550-571, November.
    4. Kang, Sung Won & Rockoff, Hugh, 2015. "Capitalizing patriotism: the Liberty loans of World War I," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 45-78, April.
    5. Hall, George J., 2004. "Exchange rates and casualties during the first world war," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1711-1742, November.
    6. Pammer, Michael, 1998. "Austrian private investments in Hungary, 1850–1913," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 141-169, August.
    7. Frey, Bruno S. & Kucher, Marcel, 2000. "World War II as reflected on capital markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 187-191, November.
    8. Oosterlinck, Kim, 2003. "The bond market and the legitimacy of Vichy France," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 326-344, July.
    9. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    10. Tobias A. Jopp, 2014. "How did the capital market evaluate Germany’s prospects for winning World War I? Evidence from the Amsterdam market for government bonds," Working Papers 0052, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    11. Willard, Kristen L & Guinnane, Timothy W & Rosen, Harvey S, 1996. "Turning Points in the Civil War: Views from the Greenback Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 1001-1018, September.
    12. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 59-82, Winter.
    13. Kim Oosterlinck & Loredana Ureche-Rangau, 2012. "Interwar Romanian sovereign bonds: the impact of diplomacy, politics and the economy," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/142705, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Working Papers 111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    15. Frey, Bruno S. & Kucher, Marcel, 2000. "History as Reflected in Capital Markets: The Case of World War II," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 468-496, June.
    16. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Working Papers 111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    17. Tobias A. Jopp, 2016. "Contemporaries' opinions of the Allied and Central Powers' performance during the First World War: measuring turning points in perception with sovereign debt prices," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(2), pages 242-273.
    18. Frey, Bruno S. & Waldenstr M, Daniel, 2004. "Markets work in war: World War II reflected in the Zurich and Stockholm bond markets," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(01), pages 51-67, April.
    19. Brown, William O, Jr & Burdekin, Richard C K, 2002. "German Debt Traded in London during the Second World War: A British Perspective on Hitler," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 69(276), pages 655-669, November.
    20. Bruno Frey & Marcel Kucher, 2001. "Wars and Markets: How Bond Values Reflect the Second World War," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(271), pages 317-333, August.
    21. Pammer, Michael, 2017. "The Hungarian risk: the premium on Hungarian state bonds, 1881–1914," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 23-52, April.
    22. repec:pri:cepsud:91malkiel is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Lembke B., 1918. "√ a. p," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 111(1), pages 709-712, February.
    24. David S. Adams, 2015. "Contemporary perceptions of the First World War reflected in the capital markets," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(1), pages 1-23, March.
    25. Oosterlinck, Kim & Ureche-Rangau, Loredana, 2012. "Interwar Romanian sovereign bonds: the impact of diplomacy, politics and the economy1," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 219-244, August.
    26. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    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. Bruno S. Frey & Daniel Waldenstr�m, 2007. "Using Financial Markets to Analyze History: The Case of the Second World War," IEW - Working Papers 335, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    2. Daniel Waldenstrom & Bruno S. Frey, 2006. "Using Markets to Measure Pre-War Threat Assessments: The Nordic Countries facing World War II," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-27, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    3. Jopp, Tobias A., 2017. "How does the public perceive alliances? The Central and Allied Powers in World War I," IBF Paper Series 12-17, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.
    4. Foley-Fisher, Nathan & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2016. "Sovereign debt guarantees and default: Lessons from the UK and Ireland, 1920–1938," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 272-286.
    5. Bryce Kanago & Ken McCormick, 2013. "The Dollar-Pound Exchange Rate During the First Nine Months of World War II," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(4), pages 385-404, December.
    6. Kim Oosterlinck & John Landon-lane, 2006. "Hope Springs Eternal – French Bondholders and the Soviet Repudiation (1915–1919)," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 10(4), pages 507-535, December.
    7. Kim Oosterlinck & Loredana Ureche-Rangau & Jacques-Marie Vaslin, 2013. "Waterloo: a Godsend for French Public Finances?," Working Papers 0041, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    8. Waldenström, Daniel & Frey, Bruno S., 2008. "Did nordic countries recognize the gathering storm of World War II? Evidence from the bond markets," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 107-126, April.
    9. Kim Oosterlinck & Jeremy Simon, 2015. "Financial Repression and Bond Market Efficiency: the Case of Italy during World War II," Working Papers CEB 15-001, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Alexander Opitz, 2018. "“Comrades, Let's March!”.† The Revolution of 1905 and its impact on financial markets," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 22(1), pages 28-52.
    11. Olga Christodoulaki & Haeran Cho & Piotr Fryzlewicz, 2011. "A Reflection of History: Fluctuations in Greek Sovereign Risk between 1914 and 1929," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 50, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    12. Christodoulaki, Olga & Cho, Haeran & Fryzlewicz, Piotr, 2011. "A reflection of history: fluctuations in Greek sovereign risk between 1914 and 1929," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38378, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. John Landon-Lane & Kim Oosterlinck, 2005. "Hope springs eternal… French bondholders and the Soviet Repudiation (1915-1919)," Departmental Working Papers 200513, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    14. Kim Oosterlinck, 2004. "Market microstructure and Nazi influence on the Paris stock exchange during WWII," Working Papers CEB 04-026.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Białkowski, Jędrzej & Ronn, Ehud I., 2019. "The global equity premium revisited: What human rights imply for assets' purchasing power," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 175-187.
    16. Flandreau, Marc & Oosterlinck, Kim, 2012. "Was the emergence of the international gold standard expected? Evidence from Indian Government securities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 649-669.
    17. Izzeldin, Marwan & Muradoğlu, Yaz Gülnur & Pappas, Vasileios & Petropoulou, Athina & Sivaprasad, Sheeja, 2023. "The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on global financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Stephanie Collette, 2012. "Sovereign bonds: odious debts and state succession," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/209718, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    19. P.Antipa, 2014. "How Fiscal Policy Affects the Price Level: Britain’s First Experience with Paper Money," Working papers 525, Banque de France.
    20. Stephanie Collet & Kim Oosterlinck, 2019. "Denouncing Odious Debts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 205-223, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Great War; Neutrality; Switzerland; Sovereign bond market; Public perception;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-

    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:kap:pubcho:v:186:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-019-00709-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.