IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-2012-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Institutions, the cost of capital, and long-run economic growth: evidence from the 19th century capital market

Author

Listed:
  • Ron Alquist
  • Benjamin Chabot

Abstract

Late 19th century investors demanded compensation to invest in countries with poor institutional protection of property rights. Using the monthly stock returns of 1,808 firms located in 43 countries but traded in London between 1866 and 1907, we estimate the country-specific cost of capital. We find a negative relationship between institutions that protect property rights and capital costs. Firms located in countries with weak institutions were charged a premium compared to similarly risky firms located in countries with strong institutions, and this penalty appeared to be costly in terms of future growth. Countries that paid a premium for borrowing in London during this period grew more slowly after 1913 and are poorer today. We thus identify the capital market as a channel through which strong institutions promote growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Ron Alquist & Benjamin Chabot, 2012. "Institutions, the cost of capital, and long-run economic growth: evidence from the 19th century capital market," Working Paper Series WP-2012-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2012-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2012/wp2012_17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jorion, Philippe & Schwartz, Eduardo, 1986. "Integration vs. Segmentation in the Canadian Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 603-614, July.
    2. Errunza, Vihang & Losq, Etienne, 1985. "International Asset Pricing under Mild Segmentation: Theory and Test," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 105-124, March.
    3. Shleifer, Andrei & Wolfenzon, Daniel, 2002. "Investor protection and equity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 3-27, October.
    4. Harvey, Campbell R, 1995. "Predictable Risk and Returns in Emerging Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(3), pages 773-816.
    5. Peter Blair Henry, 2007. "Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 887-935, December.
    6. Geert Bekaert & Campbell R. Harvey & Christian Lundblad, 2007. "Liquidity and Expected Returns: Lessons from Emerging Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(6), pages 1783-1831, November.
    7. BenjaminR. Chabot & ChristopherJ. Kurz, 2010. "That's Where The Money Was: Foreign Bias and English Investment Abroad, 1866-1907," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(547), pages 1056-1079, September.
    8. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    9. Peter Henry, 2007. "Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation," Discussion Papers 07-004, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    10. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2003. "Institutions Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income," NBER Working Papers 9490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Kose John & Lubomir Litov & Bernard Yeung, 2008. "Corporate Governance and Risk‐Taking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1679-1728, August.
    12. Merton H. Miller, 2024. "Financial markets and economic growth," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 36(1), pages 9-14, January.
    13. Greenwood, Jeremy & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1990. "Financial Development, Growth, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1076-1107, October.
    14. Laura Alfaro & Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & Vadym Volosovych, 2008. "Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 347-368, May.
    15. Chabot, Benjamin & Kurz, Christopher J., 2009. "That's Where the Money Was: Foreign Bias and English Investment Abroad, 1866-1907," Working Papers 64, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    16. Ross Levine, 1997. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and Agenda," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 688-726, June.
    17. Kenneth L. Sokoloff & Stanley L. Engerman, 2000. "Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 217-232, Summer.
    18. Valerie R. Bencivenga & Bruce D. Smith, 1991. "Financial Intermediation and Endogenous Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 195-209.
    19. Pol Antràs & Ricardo J. Caballero, 2009. "Trade and Capital Flows: A Financial Frictions Perspective," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(4), pages 701-744, August.
    20. Acemoglu, Daron & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1997. "Was Prometheus Unbound by Chance? Risk, Diversification, and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(4), pages 709-751, August.
    21. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    22. Peter Blair Henry, 2000. "Stock Market Liberalization, Economic Reform, and Emerging Market Equity Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 529-564, April.
    23. John W. McArthur & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "Institutions and Geography: Comment on Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2000)," NBER Working Papers 8114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Mendoza, Ronald U. & Canare, Tristan A. & Ang, Alvin, 2015. "Doing Business: A Review of Literature and Its Role in APEC 2015," Research Paper Series DP 2015-37, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    2. Peter Blair Henry & Diego Sasson, 2008. "Capital Account Liberalization, Real Wages, and Productivity," NBER Working Papers 13880, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jaume Ventura & Fernando Broner, 2008. "Rethinking the effects of financial liberalization," 2008 Meeting Papers 747, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Ang, Alvin & Mendoza, Ronald U. & Canare, Tristan A., 2015. "Doing Business: A Review of Literature and Its Role in APEC 2015," Discussion Papers DP 2015-37, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    5. Fernando Broner & Jaume Ventura, 2016. "Rethinking the Effects of Financial Globalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1497-1542.
    6. Jean-Pierre Allegret & Sana Azzabi, 2014. "Intégration financière internationale et croissance économique dans les pays émergents et en développement : le canal du développement financier," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 22(3), pages 27-68.
    7. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2011. "Financial Openness and Productivity," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-19, January.
    8. Peter Henry & Diego Sasson, "undated". "Capital Market Integration and Wages," Discussion Papers 08-028, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    9. Gehringer, Agnieszka, 2013. "Financial liberalization, financial development and productivity growth: An overview," Economics Discussion Papers 2013-46, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Nataliia Osina, 2021. "Global governance and gross capital flows dynamics," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 157(3), pages 463-493, August.
    11. Claessens, Stijn & Perotti, Enrico, 2007. "Finance and inequality: Channels and evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 748-773, December.
    12. Anusha Chari & Peter Blair Henry & Diego Sasson, 2012. "Capital Market Integration and Wages," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 102-132, April.
    13. Tobias D. Ketterer & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2018. "Institutions vs. ‘first‐nature’ geography: What drives economic growth in Europe's regions?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(S1), pages 25-62, March.
    14. Henry, Peter Blair & Sasson, Diego, 2009. "Capital Market Integration and Wages," Research Papers 2019, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    15. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1439-1520, Elsevier.
    16. Karen K. Lewis, 2011. "Global Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 435-466, December.
    17. Berg, Andrew & Ostry, Jonathan D. & Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, 2012. "What makes growth sustained?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 149-166.
    18. Andres Erosa & Ana Hidalgo, 2005. "On Capital Market Imperfections as a Source of Low TFP and Economic Rents," Working Papers tecipa-200, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    19. Bong‐Chan Kho & René M. Stulz & Francis E. Warnock, 2009. "Financial Globalization, Governance, and the Evolution of the Home Bias," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 597-635, May.
    20. Denizer Cevdet A. & Iyigun Murat F. & Owen Ann, 2002. "Finance and Macroeconomic Volatility," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, October.

    More about this item

    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:wp-2012-17. 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.