Rating the UK: the British government's sovereign credit ratings, 1976–8

The UK received its first sovereign credit ratings in 1978. Despite having required financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund only 18 months earlier, the British government managed to secure ‘triple‐A’ ratings from both Standard and Poor's and Moody's. Both assessments of creditworthiness reflected improving economic conditions but also British efforts to influence the sovereign ratings process. The Bank of England and the Treasury sought guidance from American investment banks to prepare for the ratings process and then controlled the flow of information available to the rating agencies accordingly, stressing the strengths of the national economy and downplaying the weaknesses. The British government subsequently launched its first bond issue in the New York market to high levels of investor demand. Consideration of these achievements complements the historiography concerning Britain's economic fortunes in the late 1970s. Scrutiny of events also offers a rare glimpse into the confidential sovereign ratings process. Both agencies relied on a combination of quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the UK. In addition, this article highlights the existence of a unique period in the history of sovereign credit ratings. From 1974 to 1985, the ratings industry enjoyed a cautious revival focused principally on ‘triple‐A’ borrowers.     

Non‐legal‐tender paper money: the structure and performance of Maryland's bills of credit, 1767–75

In this article, Maryland's non‐legal‐tender paper money emissions between 1765 and 1775 are reconstructed to determine quantities outstanding and redemption dates, providing a substantial correction to the literature. Over 80 per cent of this paper money's current market value was expected real asset present value and under 20 per cent was liquidity premium. It was primarily a real barter asset and not a fiat currency. The liquidity premium was positively related to the amount of paper money per capita in circulation. This paper money traded below face value due to time‐discounting, rather than depreciation. Past scholars have simply confused depreciation with time‐discounting.     

Regional GDP in the UK, 1861–1911: new estimates

This article compares the Geary–Stark method for distributing known GDP totals across regions with a variation suggested by Crafts. Tests of the Geary–Stark method confirm that it generates accurate estimates of regional GDP. There are practical and conceptual problems with Crafts' extension, and it is not tested nor is it testable. New estimates of regional GDP for the period 1861 to 1911 contradict Crafts's suggestion of rising regional inequality. Purchasing power parity adjustments do not alter this trend. The new estimates confirm Ireland's post‐Famine catch‐up. The great bulk of Irish labour productivity growth can be accounted for by an upward shifting production function, though it can be argued that that portion of growth that represents catch‐up may be attributable to labour force decline.     

Errors expected: the culture of credit in rural New England, 1750–1800

This article uses farm diaries from eighteenth‐century New England recast as account books in order to describe more accurately the rules of exchange and the culture of credit that prevailed in early America. This culture, which was post‐medieval yet pre‐modern, derived its fundamental characteristics from the fact that it connected participants who dealt with one another as formal equals before the law. It employed strategies inside and outside the market, and, rather than embracing or rejecting commercial activity, aimed to use whatever means necessary to achieve for householders the goal of comfortable independence.     

The role of mercantilism in Anglo‐Dutch political relations, 1650–74

The three Anglo‐Dutch wars of the seventeenth century are traditionally seen as mercantile confrontations. This view has been challenged by political historians. Firstly, this article discusses the historiographic developments in this field. Secondly, it aims to explore the relationship between Anglo‐Dutch mercantile competition and political and diplomatic relations in the period 1650 to 1674. It favours an integrated approach in which all these dimensions are taken into account. The article argues that the 1667 Peace Treaty of Breda was a major turning point in Anglo‐Dutch relations after which mercantilism ceased to dominate Anglo‐Dutch political relations.     

Energy as an indicator of modernization in Latin America, 1890–1925

In the absence of comparable macroeconomic indicators for most of the Latin American economies before the 1930s, the apparent consumption of energy is used in this paper as a proxy of the degree of modernization of Latin America and the Caribbean. This paper presents an estimate of the apparent consumption per head of modern energies (coal, petroleum, and hydroelectricity) for 30 countries of the region, 1890 to 1925. As a result, it provides the basis for a quantitative comparative analysis of modernization performance beyond the few countries for which historical national accounts are available in Latin America.     

Integration between the London and New York Stock Exchanges, 1825–1925

In this article the integration between the London and New York Stock Exchanges is analysed during the era when they were still developing as asset markets. The domestic securities on both exchanges showed little sustained integration, even when controlling for the different characteristics of stocks, which implies that the pricing of securities in the US and UK was still being driven by local factors. These results place a limit on the view that the pre‐First World War period was the first era of globalization in terms of capital markets. However, there was considerable integration between New York and those listings on London that operated internationally. This suggests that the listing of foreign securities may be one of the primary mechanisms driving asset market integration.     

Trademarks and British dominance in consumer goods, 1876–1914

Late Victorian Britain was very important in the development of British dominance in light consumer goods industries, such as fermented liquors and spirits; detergents and perfumery; bicycles and other carriages; paper, stationery, and bookbinding; and games of all kinds and sports goods. Firms developed technology‐based innovations and marketing‐based innovations, creating abnormal peaks of trademark registrations in certain industries. This article investigates those peaks and shows that factors usually pointed out as explaining British economic decline in heavy industries did not impact on the development of light consumer goods industries, and on the contrary encouraged their fast growth during this period. Trademark registrations are shown to provide new insights into the debate on British relative decline, when combined with other industry and firm‐level data.     

Individual investors and local bias in the UK, 1870–1935

This article examines the long‐run evolution of local bias by UK investors between the 1870s and the 1930s. It uses a large sample of nearly 30,000 shareholders based on 197 sets of share records, a large and representative database of the investor population across sectors and time. It investigates the structure and the evolution of local investment preference between shareholders and the companies in which they invested, as measured by the distance between where they lived and corporate headquarters. The study offers evidence of strong initial local investment preference, which declined over time for non‐Londoners, but remained strong for Londoners until the 1930s. Local investment preference of security holders was related to the size of the board of directors and, for wealthy investors, was related to the age of the firm. For large firms, local networks between investors and directors appear stronger when director shareholdings and voting rights were important. This study supports the analytical hypothesis of local informal trust networks between investors and directors as a means to overcome informational asymmetries and weak legal protection, and provides evidence that local preference was a means to curb insider opportunism and private benefits of control.     

Stillbirth registration and perceptions of infant death, 1900–60: the Scottish case in national context1

The history of vital registration has attracted substantial attention from both social historians and historical demographers. While much of that research has touched upon issues of fertility and mortality, the contentious issue of the stillborn child—which falls somewhere between the two—has been largely neglected. Although civil birth and death registration was introduced to Scotland in 1855, stillbirth registration did not begin until 1939. Using a range of legal, medical, and statistical evidence, this article explores the history of stillbirth registration in Scotland from a social history perspective. It outlines the problems associated with lack of stillbirth registration, the processes that eventually led to registration of the stillborn child, and the wider significance of that registration.     

The English monetary economy,c. 973–1100: the contribution of single‐finds1

A body of nearly 2,000 English finds of individual coins minted c. 973–1100 is surveyed as evidence for the scale and form of the monetary economy. A long‐term view indicates that this was a period of expansion in coin use, although growth in this area remained limited compared to the later middle ages, or even the eighth century. Within the eleventh century single‐finds suggest more specific developments, including a decline in coin use after the Norman Conquest, and substantial short‐term fluctuations related to various economic and monetary factors. Comparison with estimates of coin production suggests a general trend for more of mints' output to enter domestic circulation after c. 1030/40, though this need not solely reflect an increase in monetization. These chronological changes are compared with the pattern of circulation within England. Overall, the kingdom enjoyed a unified currency which did not see marked localization of coin circulation. Parts of northern England were less integrated with the south, but not so far as to suggest active exclusion of non‐local coin. More striking was a general trend for both production and circulation to be concentrated in the east and the south.