IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10352.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fibonacci and the Financial Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • William N. Goetzmann

Abstract

This paper examines the contribution of Leonardo of Pisa [Fibonacci] to the history of financial mathematics. Evidence in Leonardo's Liber Abaci (1202) suggests that he was the first to develop present value analysis for comparing the economic value of alternative contractual cash flows. He also developed a general method for expressing investment returns, and solved a wide range of complex interest rate problems. The paper argues that his advances in the mathematics of finance were stimulated by the commercial revolution in the Mediterranean during his lifetime, and in turn, his discoveries significantly influenced the evolution of capitalist enterprise and public finance in Europe in the centuries that followed. Fibonacci's discount rates were more culturally influential than his famous series.

Suggested Citation

  • William N. Goetzmann, 2004. "Fibonacci and the Financial Revolution," NBER Working Papers 10352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10352
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10352.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greif, Avner, 1989. "Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 857-882, December.
    2. Lin, Justin Yifu, 1995. "The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 269-292, January.
    3. Geoffrey Poitras, 2000. "The Early History of Financial Economics, 1478–1776," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2151.
    4. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    5. Alfred E. Lieber, 1968. "Eastern Business Practices and Medieval European Commerce," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 21(2), pages 230-243, August.
    6. Munro, John H., 2002. "The medieval origins of the 'Financial Revolution': usury, rentes, and negotiablity," MPRA Paper 10925, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2002.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Behringer, 2016. "The Development of the Net Present Value (NPV) Rule ¨C Religious Prohibitions and Its Evolution," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 6, pages 74-87, August.
    2. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross & Michalopoulos, Stelios, 2015. "Financial innovation and endogenous growth," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 1-24.
    3. Mark Koyama, 2008. "Evading the 'Taint of Usury' Complex Contracts and Segmented Capital Markets," Economics Series Working Papers 412, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Timothy Johnson, 2015. "Reciprocity as a Foundation of Financial Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 43-67, September.
    5. Diana A. Filip & Cyrille Piatecki, 2014. "In defense of a non-newtonian economic analysis," Working Papers hal-00945782, HAL.
    6. Balbir S. Sihag, 2017. "Kautilya, Fibonacci and Samuelson on Discounting," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 7(2), pages 1-3.
    7. Timothy C. Johnson, 2013. "Reciprocity as the foundation of Financial Economics," Papers 1310.2798, arXiv.org.
    8. Mantilla-García, Daniel & García-Huitrón, Manuel E. & Concha-Perdomo, Alvaro & Aldana-Galindo, Julian R., 2023. "Is my pension fund more expensive? Estimating equivalent assets-based and contribution-based management fees," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    9. Timothy C. Johnson, 2012. "Ethics and Finance: the role of mathematics," Papers 1210.5390, arXiv.org.
    10. Hrvoje Josic & Berislav Zmuk, 2020. "Can Croatian Urban Hierarchy Be Approximated With The Fibonacci Sequence? An Analysis On Historical Population Data," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 29(1), pages 3-28, june.
    11. Fragiskos Archontakis & Evan Osborne, 2007. "Playing It Safe? A Fibonacci Strategy for Soccer Betting," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 8(3), pages 295-308, June.

    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. William Goetzmann, 2003. "Fibonacci and the Financial Revolution," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm432, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Mar 2004.
    2. Pierre-Charles Pradier, 2016. "The debt of the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris from 1660 to 1690: a testbed for sovereign default," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 16057, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    3. Allen, Franklin & Qian, Jun & Qian, Meijun, 2005. "Law, finance, and economic growth in China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 57-116, July.
    4. Allen, Franklin & Chakrabarti, Rajesh & De, Sankar & Qian, Jun “QJ” & Qian, Meijun, 2012. "Financing firms in India," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 409-445.
    5. Janvier D. Nkurunziza, 2005. "Reputation and Credit without Collateral in Africa`s Formal Banking," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2005-02, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. ManYing Kang & Marcel Ausloos, 2017. "An Inverse Problem Study: Credit Risk Ratings as a Determinant of Corporate Governance and Capital Structure in Emerging Markets: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies," Economies, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-23, November.
    7. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2014. "Does local financial development matter for firm lifecycle in India ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7008, The World Bank.
    8. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Julius Agbor, 2016. "Does Trust Matter for Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Cross-Section of Countries," Economies, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-17, March.
    9. Konstantin Yanovsky & Ilia Zatcovetzky & Sergei Zhavoronkov & Ekaterina Reva, 2013. "Modern Anti-Capitalistic Ideologies," Working Papers 0059, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2013.
    10. Qian Wang & Duowen Wu & Lina Yan, 2021. "Effect of positive tone in MD&A disclosure on capital structure adjustment speed: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(4), pages 5809-5845, December.
    11. Anoshkina, Ekaterina S. (Аношкина, Екатерина) & Markovskaya, Elizaveta I. (Марковская, Елизавета), 2018. "Empirical Analysis of Capital Structure Determinants of Russian Oil and Gas Companies [Анализ Структуры Капитала Российских Компаний Нефтегазового Сектора]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 80-109, October.
    12. Ahammad, Mohammad Faisal & Tarba, Shlomo Yedidia & Liu, Yipeng & Glaister, Keith W., 2016. "Knowledge transfer and cross-border acquisition performance: The impact of cultural distance and employee retention," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 66-75.
    13. Guedes, José & Santos, Pedro, 2016. "Valuing an offshore oil exploration and production project through real options analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 377-386.
    14. J. Sarmiento-Sabogal & M. Sadeghi, 2015. "Estimating the cost of equity for private firms using accounting fundamentals," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 288-301, January.
    15. Mika Kallioinen, 2017. "Inter‐communal institutions in medieval trade," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1131-1152, November.
    16. King, Timothy & Srivastav, Abhishek & Williams, Jonathan, 2016. "What's in an education? Implications of CEO education for bank performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 287-308.
    17. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Pensa, Pascal & Wöhle, Claudia B., 2004. "Kapitalstrukturtheorie in Theorie und Praxis: Ergebnisse einer Fragebogenuntersuchung," Working papers 2004/09, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    18. Magdalena Mikolajek-Gocejna, 2021. "Estimation, Instability, and Non-Stationarity of Beta Coefficients for Twenty-four Emerging Markets in 2005-2021," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 370-395.
    19. Correia, Ricardo & Población, Javier, 2015. "A structural model with Explicit Distress," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 112-130.
    20. Naumoski Aleksandar, 2022. "Financial Policy and Companies’ Sustainable Growth," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 60(3), pages 281-301, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B10 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - General
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals

    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:nbr:nberwo:10352. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.