IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eme/rehizz/s0363-326820190000035007.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Banque de France’s Shareholders (1800–1945): Passive Petit-Rentiers

In: Research in Economic History

Author

Listed:
  • Arnaud Manas

Abstract

Before it was fully nationalized in 1945, theBanque de Francewas a listed company that distributed dividends to its shareholders and was listed on the Paris stock exchange. By comparing with other stocks and indexes, I show that, in spite of large earnings,Banque de France’s stock was a lackluster but popular investment. By examining the distribution of profits between the state and ordinary shareholders, I show that the state began to exert an influence over the Bank well before its nationalization, in the nineteenth century, amounting to a stealthy takeover. I then go on to analyze the Bank’s formal governance framework and the power of its regents (directors). Using a novel method to compute the shareholders’ statistical distribution, I conclude that small new shareholders who were less sophisticated bought predominantly shares from old larger shareholders. Eventually, most of the shareholders were “petit-bourgeois” passive rentiers who accepted the mediocre performance and kept reelecting the regents. I conclude by saying that the power of the 200 largest shareholders (“200 families”) was a political myth with little foundation in reality.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnaud Manas, 2019. "Banque de France’s Shareholders (1800–1945): Passive Petit-Rentiers," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, volume 35, pages 133-163, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:rehizz:s0363-326820190000035007
    DOI: 10.1108/S0363-326820190000035007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0363-326820190000035007/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0363-326820190000035007/full/epub?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec&title=10.1108/S0363-326820190000035007
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0363-326820190000035007/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/S0363-326820190000035007?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Banque de France; governance; shareholder’s statistical distribution; share performance; dividends; nationalization; power of directors; Gini index; E58; G21; N23; N83;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N83 - Economic History - - Micro-Business History - - - Europe: Pre-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:eme:rehizz:s0363-326820190000035007. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.