Rules and reality: quantifying the practice of apprenticeship in early modern England1

This article uses recently digitized samples of apprentices and masters in London and Bristol to quantify the practice of apprenticeship in the late seventeenth century. Apprenticeship appears much more fluid than is traditionally understood. Many apprentices did not complete their terms of indenture; late arrival and early departure from the master's household were widespread. Other apprentices appear to have been absent temporarily, returning to the master shortly before the end of their indenture. Regression analysis indicates that the patterns of presence and absence broadly reflect the resources and external opportunities available to apprentices.     

What Is Systemic Risk?

The traditional view of risk in a financial system is that it is the summation of individual risks within the system. However, the financial crisis that started in 2007 has driven home that this view of risk is inadequate. It is the interactions of financial institutions and markets that determine the systemic risks that drive financial crises. We identify four types of systemic risk. These are (i) panics—banking crises due to multiple equilibria; (ii) banking crises due to asset price falls; (iii) contagion; and (iv) foreign exchange mismatches in the banking system.     

Rational Expectations and the Measurement of a Stock's Elasticity of Demand

Scholes 1 considered the effect of secondary sales of large blocks of stock on the price of the stock. However, he only looked at price changes occurring just before and just after the sale took place. It is argued here, using a simple model, that if traders have rational expectations they may anticipate the sale, and prices could reflect this possibility long before it actually occurs. To determine the full effect, it may therefore be necessary to consider the price path many months, or even years, before the sale.     

The Shelf Registration of Debt and Self Selection Bias

Prior studies report lower issue costs for shelf registered debt and conclude that the benefits of increased underwriter competition can be realized by those firms using this registration procedure. This study re-examines the purported superiority of issuing debt via shelf registration, and finds that the savings in issue costs displayed by earlier studies can be attributed to a self selection bias and not the method of registration.     

Monetary Expansion,International Trade and Capital Accumulation*

This paper considers the long-run domestic and foreign effects of a domestic monetary expansion in a two-country model in which the processes of capital accumulation at home and abroad interact with each other via international trade. We investigate the global stability conditions and their relationship with the comparative dynamic effects of a monetary expansion in the model. In particular, we show that under plausible global stability conditions the early analytical results obtained by Roberts (1978) and Shieh (1984) may be reversed in the two-country model.     

INTEREST CHARGES FOR AUTOMOBILE LOANS IN METROPOLITAN TORONTO

This study addresses itself to the structure of interest rates for automobile loans in Toronto. Variations in interest charges were found among every type of lender. Because of the banking structure in Canada, loan rates would be similar in other parts of Ontario and in the other Canadian provinces.