This article studies the long-run labor market consequences of lender-of-last-resort (LLR) intervention during the Great Depression. I exploit a natural experiment created by the Federal Reserve district border separating counties under the jurisdiction of the Atlanta and St. Louis Federal Reserve Banks. During the banking panic of 1930, the Atlanta Fed aggressively extended liquidity to distressed banks, while the St. Louis Fed largely refrained from intervention. Using newly digitized county-level manufacturing data and linked individual-level census records from 1930 and 1940, I examine how exposure to this liquidity support affected local economic activity and worker outcomes. Counties within the Atlanta district experienced fewer bank failures and stronger manufacturing performance in the early 1930s. These differences translated into persistent labor market effects: individuals in treated counties were more likely to remain in manufacturing employment and less likely to migrate across state lines by 1940. The results suggest that financial stabilization policies can shape the long-run allocation of labor across regions and sectors.
We combine data from subscription lists in rights offers with church records and individual tax returns to study the demography of the Swedish stock market around 1920. The typical shareholder was a middle-aged married man with a high income and university education or business affiliation. Stock ownership was gender contingent and changed over the life cycle. Men became stock market investors before they married, while women became stockholders through marriage. Men continued investing in old age, while women depleted their stock portfolios. Women who failed to marry purchased stocks to provide for their financial future. We relate these life-cycle patterns to mortality risk, migration patterns, and different opportunities for men and women. We conclude that the stock market supported family formation and female emancipation.
This article analyses the integration of Southern Italy into the first wave of financial globalization through the lens of transnational business groups (BGs) and relational infrastructures. Drawing on an original micro-level dataset and employing advanced Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques, we map the evolving structure of business and financial relationships that connected the Neapolitan periphery to core European financial centres in the nineteenth century.The article offers a relational reinterpretation of peripheral integration, showing that global capitalism advanced not merely through markets or states, but through densely structured networks of trust, influence and institutional proximity. It proposes a methodological and conceptual framework relevant to comparative histories of financial globalization and to rethinking the role of peripheries in shaping, and not just receiving, the trajectories of modern capitalism.
This article examines the repercussions of the European banking crises of 1931 on Argentina's banking sector, emphasizing the role of European banks with branches in the country. While existing literature has focused on the spread of financial instability in Europe and the United States, little attention has been given to the effects on developing economies. Argentina, a key destination for European capital, provides a compelling case study. Using balance sheets, financial statements and archival evidence, this study explores how European banks acted as conduits for the transmission of the 1931 crisis. As parent banks in Europe faced strain, their Argentine affiliates experienced significant deposit withdrawals and were forced to revise their balance sheet strategies, heightening vulnerability within Argentina's banking system. The findings highlight the broader consequences of global financial integration and suggest that the ripple effects of the European meltdown prolonged recessionary pressures in Argentina, altering lending practices long after the initial shock. This research contributes to the historiography of interwar banking, offering a deeper understanding of the dynamics between European and developing economies during the Great Depression, and underscores the need for further exploration of financial instability in peripheral regions.
Do self-imposed short-selling bans stabilise markets or impair them? We study the 1930 restrictions on non-mining shares introduced by the self-regulated Sydney (SSX) and Melbourne (MSX) exchanges one day apart. Using hand-collected daily quotes and trades for four weeks around the bans, we estimate difference-in-differences models by exchange and by listing status, and stratify firms by pre-ban liquidity and returns. Bid-ask spreads widen overall, most for initially illiquid firms and on SSX, while MSX effects are weaker, consistent with brief cross-venue substitution. Trading volumes adjust unevenly, with notable contractions among high-volume non-mining and dual listed firms. Returns show no systematic impact, although relative gains accrued to high-return non-mining firms on SSX. Overall, the bans introduced new frictions in liquidity and participation without providing broad price support. Our results underscore the limited effectiveness of self-regulated short-selling restrictions and offer historical insights for today's self-regulated markets such as cryptocurrency and over-the-counter trading.
