IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/102249.html

An Institutional Investor in 18th-Century Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Francois R. Velde

Abstract

Queen Anne’s Bounty was a corporation created in 1704 to redistribute income within the Anglican clergy. Structurally a saver needing a liquid asset, the corporation pursued a conservative strategy of investing in the dominant form of government debt, adapting as the market changed. It was involved in the South Sea Bubble but only made losses and steered clear from corporate equity and bonds thereafter.

Suggested Citation

  • Francois R. Velde, 2025. "An Institutional Investor in 18th-Century Britain," Working Paper Series WP 2025-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:102249
    DOI: 10.21033/wp-2025-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.21033/wp-2025-20
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.21033/wp-2025-20?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ann M. Carlos & Larry Neal, 2006. "The micro‐foundations of the early London capital market: Bank of England shareholders during and after the South Sea Bubble, 1720–251," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(3), pages 498-538, August.
    2. Ann M. Carlos & Erin Fletcher & Larry Neal, 2015. "Share portfolios in the early years of financial capitalism: London, 1690–1730," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 574-599, May.
    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. Edmond Smith, 2018. "The global interests of London's commercial community, 1599–1625: investment in the East India Company," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1118-1146, November.
    2. Condorelli, Stefano, 2014. "The 1719-20 stock euphoria: a pan-European perspective," MPRA Paper 68652, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2015.
    3. Cosemans, Mathijs & Frehen, Rik, 2025. "Strategic insider trading and its consequences for outsiders: Evidence from the eighteenth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    4. Hillman, Arye L., 2024. "Philanthropy as politics: The precolonial Georgia project for a new start in life for England's poor," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Ann M. (Ann Martina) Carlos & Karen Maguire & Larry Neal, 2008. "“A knavish people ... so dextrous in bargaining that it is impossible for Christians to expect any advantage in their dealings with them” : London Jewry and the stockmarket during the South Sea Bubble," Working Papers 200806, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    6. Ann M. Carlos & Erin Fletcher & Larry Neal, 2015. "Share portfolios in the early years of financial capitalism: London, 1690–1730," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 574-599, May.
    7. Patrick K. O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2023. "Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694–1844," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 305-329, February.
    8. Frehen, Rik G.P. & Goetzmann, William N. & Geert Rouwenhorst, K., 2013. "New evidence on the first financial bubble," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 585-607.
    9. Andrew Odlyzko, 2016. "Financialisation of the early Victorian economy and the London Stock Exchange," Working Papers 16028, Economic History Society.
    10. Hu, Yang & Oxley, Les, 2018. "Do 18th century ‘bubbles’ survive the scrutiny of 21st century time series econometrics?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 131-134.
    11. Leonor Freire Costa & Susana Münch Miranda, 2023. "Reputational recovery under political instability: Public debt in Portugal, 1641–83," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(3), pages 871-891, August.
    12. Andrew Odlyzko, 2017. "The London Stock Exchange and the British shadow banking system," Working Papers 17002, Economic History Society.
    13. Gregory Price & Warren Whatley, 2021. "Did profitable slave trading enable the expansion of empire?: The Asiento de Negros, the South Sea Company and the financial revolution in Great Britain," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(3), pages 675-718, September.
    14. Acheson, Graeme G. & Aldous, Michael & Quinn, William, 2022. "The anatomy of a bubble company: The London Assurance in 1720," QUCEH Working Paper Series 22-08, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    15. repec:ehl:lserod:127155 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos & Janette Rutterford & Carolyn Keber, 2020. "UK investment trust portfolio strategies before the First World War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 785-814, August.
    17. Calomiris, Charles W. & Jaremski, Matthew, 2024. "The puzzling persistence of financial crises: A selective review of 2000 years of evidence," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Anne L. Murphy, 2009. "Trading options before Black‐Scholes: a study of the market in late seventeenth‐century London1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(s1), pages 8-30, August.
    19. Stasavage, David, 2016. "What we can learn from the early history of sovereign debt," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-16.
    20. Turner, John D., 2024. "Three centuries of corporate governance in the UK," QUCEH Working Paper Series 24-01, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    21. Hilt, Eric & Valentine, Jacqueline, 2012. "Democratic Dividends: Stockholding, Wealth, and Politics in New York, 1791–1826," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 332-363, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedhwp:102249. 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: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.html .

    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.