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.

Whether patterns of ownership and control affect firm performance is unresolved in the conceptual literature, which balances agency costs against efficient management. We investigate the question for a sample of 90 firms in Australia in the 1930s, a critical period for the growth of its capital markets and in a distinctive setting. We confirm the conclusions reached by a limited range of historical studies that little or no relationship existed between performance and the degree of control exercised by company directors. Delving more closely into the key managerial roles, those Chairmen with connections across industries fared better. Where managerial power was concentrated in a dual Chair and Managing Director, it negatively impacted performance. However, large 'active' investors are associated with greater returns and higher company value, suggesting a countervailing power on the Board. Future research might focus on these key leadership positions and how they shaped the fate of companies.

A developing literature points to women's growing significance in the Australian colonial economy, particularly as business owners. We investigate whether they were also active company investors, as evidence from countries such as Britain and America indicates. The Australian Gas Light Company, one of Australia's oldest and largest enterprises, shines a light on female investors across a century since its formation in 1836. We reveal a sharp increase in the number and share of female shareholders from the second half of the nineteenth century, many of whom were independent investors. Despite graduated voting rights that offered small female investors a say in the company, in practice their influence was constrained by the behaviours and attitudes among male investors.

We draw upon an extensive database of investors in colonial Australian mining, during the 1850s-80s, to provide the first historical analysis of the nature of women's share investing in Australia. Women were a minority of investors by number and value of holdings and faced a series of obstacles, yet their presence grew throughout the period. Most women invested independently neither drawing on male relatives nor other women. Many opted for only a single investment in this high-risk industry, but a small minority built significant portfolios. We reveal that women managed these risks differently from men, taking account of their attitudes towards company characteristics, investor location, portfolio diversification, and the cyclical trends in mining.

We examine how media reports influenced trading volumes and order imbalances on the Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX) from 1901 to 1950, focusing on wool market reports as a substitute for broader financial advice in the absence of a specialised investment press. Given wool's status as Australia's primary export and its integration with various sectors, we construct a weekly media sentiment index based on news about wool sales and auctions from the Sydney Morning Herald. Our findings reveal that positive news about the wool market correlates with increased trading volumes and reduced order imbalances on the SSX. This relationship persisted during significant events such as the UK government's wool purchase plans, the 1929 Wall Street Crash, World War II-related trading restrictions, and the short selling ban.

Little is known about the history of female investing in Australia. We develop a new dataset of company shareholders between 1857 and 1937, covering all major sectors of the economy. We calculate the female fraction of shareowners, their occupational and geographic backgrounds, and we analyse their investment patterns and behaviours including their risk profiles and portfolio construction decisions. Our findings suggest that 'gender equity'-and more-had been reached, for some companies, by the interwar period. Women investors came from many walks of life, had various motives, and appear to have largely acted independently of other women and of men.

PurposeThis study investigates investor trading behaviour around regular and one-off public holidays on the Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX) from 1901 to 1950. The purpose is to examine whether trading patterns differ between regular holidays, which are known in advance, and one-off holidays, which are unexpected. The study provides insights into the predictability of holidays and its influence on market activity, contributing to the broader literature on investor inattention and market anomalies.Design/methodology/approachUsing a novel dataset constructed from handwritten share price lists covering 14,224 trading days, we perform quantitative analysis to assess trading volume before and after regular and one-off public holidays. Ordinary least squares regression models are employed to identify the presence of a holiday effect, accounting for various fixed effects and time-varying factors such as geopolitical events.FindingsWe find that trading volume is significantly lower on the day before regular holidays and higher on the day after, consistent with the investor inattention hypothesis. In contrast, no significant holiday effect is observed for one-off holidays. This suggests that predictability plays a crucial role in influencing investor behaviour, with irregular, less predictable holidays having less impact on trading patterns.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited by the historical nature of the data, which may not fully capture the diversity of modern trading environments. Additionally, the analysis is restricted to the SSX and may not be generalisable to other markets or time periods. Future research could explore similar effects in different contexts or with more recent data.Practical implicationsThis research provides valuable insights for market participants and regulators by demonstrating how the predictability of holidays influences market activity. Understanding these patterns could help in making more informed decisions during periods of expected low trading volumes.Social implicationsThe study underscores the role of public holidays in shaping investor behaviour, with broader implications for understanding how societal events influence financial markets. This is particularly relevant in discussions about the impact of unexpected events on market stability.Originality/valueThis is the first study to compare the effects of regular and one-off public holidays on trading volumes in a historical stock market context. Our findings highlight the importance of event predictability in financial markets, offering a new perspective on how historical market behaviours can inform current financial theories.

Has Australia's focus as a producer and exporter of natural resources-often considered low technology industries-constrained the development of its innovation system? We exploit a new digital database from the Commonwealth Patent Office to investigate this question. We find that the focus of domestic innovativeness supported key industries for Australian development and complemented technological specialization by foreign patent applicants, particularly in European and American manufacturing. The results support the argument that shifts in national technological orientation is a relatively long game and that technical advantage is shaped by a nation's stage of economic development.

The no liability company - where investors are not liable for uncalled parts of their shares - is unique to Australasia. Deploying a large dataset, we provide the first empirical examination of the effects of this new corporate type on company formation and shareholding. Victorian gold mining was the earliest and most pervasive user of no liability. No liability companies largely replaced limited liability within a decade of the legislation in 1871, which was more rapid than the transition from unlimited to limited liability companies in several other nations. No liability firms attracted a broader range of investors, geographically beyond the mining districts, and amongst occupations most conscious of their benefits, especially gentlemen and financiers who believed they were less risky because of the removal of call liabilities and the mitigation of previous regulatory failures. No liability was a response to the high risks of gold mining in an itinerant early settler society.

We examine the long run relationship between innovation and economic development in Australia, using 150 years of data on patenting activity, and aggregate and sectoral economic indicators. Our initial results point to several important causal relationships, particularly the effects of patents on real GDP and of private capital formation on patents. We delve deeper at the sector level and find important causal relationships of patents with real foreign direct investment (FDI) since World War II. Australia's dependence on FDI for private capital formation served as an important stimulus for knowledge creation in key sectors including manufacturing, agriculture and mining.

We examine trading patterns around public holidays on the Sydney Stock Exchange between 1901 and 1950 using a new dataset constructed from handwritten stock and share lists recording buy and sell bids and sales prices. We find that trading volume dropped significantly pre-public holiday, supporting the investor inattention hypothesis. Less evidence exists for a post-holiday trading surge. The pre-holiday effect is consistent throughout the period, applicable only to regular annual holidays and not irregular events like royal visits or military incidents.

Developing capital markets generally lack the regulatory safeguards and rich informational sources that assist investors in judging new equity issues in modern markets. Focusing on the early stage capital market in interwar Australia, we calculate the success (underpricing and percentage raised) of 786 new equity issues, comparing initial public offerings, seasoned equity offerings, and rights issues. We examine whether the use of underwriters and the choice of security (ordinary or preference shares) affected the success of the equity issue. We find that certification by underwriters had no effect on capital-raising success once we controlled for firm-specific factors in the multivariate regressions, while underpricing and percentage raised varied by type of shares offered to investors.

This paper examines the impact of the US-China trade war on the operating performance of Chinese export-oriented SMEs with US customer concentration. Using a unique dataset derived from textual analysis and company information from the New Third Board Market, we employ matched pairs analysis to compare the abnormal performance of export-oriented SMEs before and after the introduction of tariffs, controlling for performance, industry and size. We find that tariff changes did not negatively impact the operating performance of Chinese export-oriented SMEs, as compared with domestic matched firms. In general, returns on assets, return on sales and sales growth were higher after the introduction of tariffs, although we find that the first year of tariffs negatively impacted operating performance for SME firms the higher their level of American customer concentration. Our findings suggest that export oriented Chinese SMEs are resilient to changes in tariffs, effectively managing customer concentration and have operating flexibility to hedge against adverse changes rules which regulate the flow of goods through global supply chains.

This study applies modern network theory to trade and finance networks in the New Zealand pastoral sector before World War Two It particularly examines the manner in which networks can include trading and financial business transactions simultaneously. In addition, it provides evidence of the role of leadership in such networks, in this case played by the stock and station agents as intermediaries bringing farmers into contact with a wide range of service providers.

The chapter provides an overview of private debt and private debt markets. It explains the array of different specific types of private debt investments that are observed in practice, and the role equity incentives play in private debt deals. The chapter examines evidence from different countries around the world, including developed and developing markets. The chapter also describes the motives and contexts for using private debt, including but not limited to transactions involving private placements, syndicated loans, and direct lending. Private debt is not restricted to private companies but includes public ones as well. Further, the chapter characterizes private debt investors and their evolution over time. Additionally, it reviews evidence on the returns that private debt investors enjoy. The chapter concludes by identifying gaps in existing knowledge of private debt and offering suggestions for future research.

Private debt fund managers invest in debt positions of private companies through (1) new issuances or (2) secondary acquisition of loans. In the study reported here, we used data from more than 400 investments into private companies in 13 Asia-Pacific markets between 2001 and 2015 to examine which strategy performs best. Conditional on market and industry factors, trading private debt delivers higher returns than buying and holding a primary issuance. So, institutional investors should permit fund managers investment flexibility to trade. Furthermore, a portfolio of private debt investments delivers excess returns to public markets over time, with excess returns affected by volatility, funding liquidity, and the global financial crisis. An investment in Asia-Pacific private debt should improve risk-adjusted returns for a global or emerging market fixed-income portfolio.

We compare the types of loans and their rates of returns for domestic versus offshore small and mid-sized private real estate credit funds. The data indicate offshore private credit funds issue smaller and subordinated loans to residential projects. Offshore lenders prefer projects in developed Asian markets, and obtain higher rates of return even after controlling for other things such as loan size, seniority, and borrower location. Our findings suggest the presence of pronounced segmentation across real estate lending markets in Asia as offshore lenders are not a substitute for domestic capital.

This chapter provides an analysis of companies undertaking a reverse merger (RM) as opposed to an initial public offering (IPO) on Chinese stock markets. It introduces a new data set of RMs on Chinese exchanges to examine the financial characteristics of firms that choose an RM over an IPO. The authors find that Chinese RM firms have lower liquidity, higher leverage, and lower asset turnover than firms that go public through an IPO. Promoters of Chinese RM firms also hold more shares as compared with IPOs. Finally, Chinese RM firms have higher return on assets and lower underpricing at listing. The results identify several characteristics of Chinese RM firms that differentiate them from firms that go public via an RM in Western markets, suggesting that Chinese institutions and stage of stock market development may impact the decision to go public.

Leveraged buyout markets in the Asia Pacific have grown substantially since the 1980s and now play an important role in the market for corporate control. This paper undertakes an international comparative analysis of the emergence and growth of leveraged buyout firms in the Asia Pacific and their role in corporate restructuring, with a focus on Australia, Japan and South Korea. Three distinct periods in the development of these markets are identified. The paper highlights the importance of state involvement and changes in domestic economic policy around financial crises, where governments created new rules to facilitate buyouts as an organisational restructuring solution to distressed companies.