IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v104y1996i2p346-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reputation Formation in Early Bank Note Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Gorton, Gary

Abstract

Two hypotheses concerning firms issuing debt for the first time are tested. The first is that new firms' debt is discounted more heavily by lenders compared to otherwise identical firms that have 'reputations' in the form of credit histories. The second hypothesis is that, prior to the establishment of a reputation, new firms issuing debt are monitored more intensely. The sample studied consists of new banks issuing bank notes for the first time during the American Free Banking Era (1838-60). The results explain why the pre-Civil War system of private money issuance by banks was not plagued by problems of overissuance ('wildcat banking'). Copyright 1996 by University of Chicago Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Gorton, Gary, 1996. "Reputation Formation in Early Bank Note Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 346-397, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:104:y:1996:i:2:p:346-97
    DOI: 10.1086/262027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/262027
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/262027?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. Sorensen, Eric H., 1982. "On the Seasoning Process of New Bonds: Some Are More Seasoned than Others," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 195-208, June.
    2. Klein, Benjamin, 1974. "The Competitive Supply of Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 6(4), pages 423-453, November.
    3. Arthur J. Rolnick & Warren E. Weber, 1982. "Free banking, wildcat banking, and shinplasters," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 6(Fall).
    4. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    5. Boyle, Phelim P. & Ananthanarayanan, A. L., 1977. "The impact of variance estimation in option valuation models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 375-387, December.
    6. Ederington, Louis H, 1974. "The Yield Spread of New Issues of Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(5), pages 1531-1543, December.
    7. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1980. "Equilibrium in a Pure Currency Economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(2), pages 203-220, April.
    8. Kahn, James A, 1985. "Another Look at Free Banking in the United States [New Evidence on the Free Banking Era]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 881-885, September.
    9. Wasserfallen, Walter & Wydler, Daniel, 1988. " Underpricing of Newly Issued Bonds: Evidence from the Swiss Capital Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(5), pages 1177-1191, December.
    10. Du Boff, Richard B., 1980. "Business Demand and the Development of the Telegraph in the United States, 1844–1860," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(4), pages 459-479, January.
    11. Lindstrom, Diane L., 1975. "Demand, Markets, and Eastern Economic Development: Philadelphia, 1815–184," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 271-273, March.
    12. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    13. Weinstein, Mark I, 1978. "The Seasoning Process of New Corporate Bond Issues," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(5), pages 1343-1354, December.
    14. Lindvall, John R, 1977. "New Issue Corporate Bonds, Seasoned Market Efficiency and Yield Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1057-1067, September.
    15. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    16. Fung, W K H & Rudd, Andrew, 1986. "Pricing New Corporate Bond Issues: An Analysis of Issue Cost and Seasoning Effects," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 633-643, July.
    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. Gary Gorton, "undated". "The Enforceability of Private Money Contracts, Market Efficiency, and Technological Change," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 19-90, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    2. Rischen, Tobias & Theissen, Erik, 2018. "Underpricing in the euro area corporate bond market: New evidence from post-crisis regulation and quantitative easing," CFR Working Papers 18-03, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    3. Rischen, Tobias & Theissen, Erik, 2021. "Underpricing in the euro area bond market: New evidence from post-crisis regulation and quantitative easing," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    4. Gary Gorton, 1993. "Reputation Formation in Early Bank Debt Markets," NBER Working Papers 4400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gorton, Gary, 1999. "Pricing free bank notes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 33-64, August.
    6. Jun-Koo, Kang & Lee, Yul W., 1996. "The pricing of convertible debt offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 231-248, June.
    7. Galina Hale & João A. C. Santos, 2006. "Evidence on the costs and benefits of bond IPOs," Working Paper Series 2006-42, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    8. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Jacobsen, Stacey & Maxwell, William & Venkataraman, Kumar, 2022. "Overallocation and secondary market outcomes in corporate bond offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 444-474.
    9. Michel A. Habib & Alexandre Ziegler, 2003. "Why Government Bonds Are Sold by Auction and Corporate Bonds by Posted-Price Selling," FAME Research Paper Series rp78, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    10. Habib, Michel A. & Ziegler, Alexandre, 2007. "Why government bonds are sold by auction and corporate bonds by posted-price selling," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 343-367, July.
    11. Robert L. Brown & Dominique Achour, 1984. "The Pricing of Land Options," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 21(3), pages 317-323, August.
    12. Duffie, Darrell, 2003. "Intertemporal asset pricing theory," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 639-742, Elsevier.
    13. David S. Bates, 1995. "Testing Option Pricing Models," NBER Working Papers 5129, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Scholes, Myron S, 1998. "Derivatives in a Dynamic Environment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 350-370, June.
    15. Câmara, António & Popova, Ivilina & Simkins, Betty, 2012. "A comparative study of the probability of default for global financial firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 717-732.
    16. Bertram Düring, 2009. "Asset pricing under information with stochastic volatility," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 141-167, July.
    17. Walter Wasserfallen & Daniel Wydler, 1986. "Die Preisbildung von neu emittierten Obligationen in der Schweiz," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 122(III), pages 425-442, September.
    18. Murphy, Austin & Headley, Adrian, 2022. "An empirical evaluation of alternative fundamental models of credit spreads," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. Ronn, Ehud I. & Senbet, Lemma W., 1995. "Debt and market incompleteness," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(8), pages 1379-1400, November.
    20. Jeremy Leake, 2003. "Credit spreads on sterling corporate bonds and the term structure of UK interest rates," Bank of England working papers 202, Bank of England.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jpolec:v:104:y:1996:i:2:p:346-97. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.