Finance & History

With Ghassan Moazzin ( University of Hong Kong ), Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) talks about the integration of China into the world economy in the late 19th century. It's the time towards the end of the Imperial period in China. Did foreign actors impose Western capitalism or merely fill an ever growing institutional void and need for capital to finance reform and build critical infrastructure? List...

Are real sector bailouts good public policy in crisis? In early 1932, President Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the depth of the Great Depression. The objective was to protect the credit structure and stimulate employment. The loans given were below market interest rates; hence qualified as bailouts. Gertjan argues that these bailouts benefited existing employees and b...

Founded in 1674, Bankhaus Metzler is one of the oldest continuously family owned financial businesses in the world. This longstanding independence gave the bank and its customers many opportunities to make money. The bank proved the soundness of its business during several difficult periods in history, like the German hyperinflation after the Great War. The following period of National socialist r...

The Great Depression remains the largest financial crisis in American history. Bank of America is one of the largest banks in the United States. At the time, the Bank did something remarkably well in order to maneuver the turbulent waters of that great crisis. What was it and how did the bank do profitable business as much as foster economic and structural change in difficult economic circumstance...

Was there a world before inflation targeting?  Alain Naef (Banque de France) and Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) talk about currencies and exchange rates. More precisely about how pound sterling was managed on a daily basis, how Black Wednesday (1992) ended active exchange rate management in Great Britain and why the story of sterling after 1945 is the story of the decline of the British empire....

Broken promises?  This episode is about the world's growing dependence on debt financing and current challenges to the world economy. The promise once made that deeper and larger financial markets would make our economies more stable did not hold true. What happened instead? What is meant by the paradox of stabilisation policies and central bank safety nets? What can history teach us about ri...

How to build an economy?  Come and follow Hugo Bänziger ( eabh ) & Pete Asch (NYSE) to the creation of the modern US American economy and their views on the historical roots of the country's current dynamic economy. Together they discuss the creation of the US bond market, the role of Hamilton, the significance of the Buttonwood Agreement and the role of equity. More than helping build a...

How do the Swedes do it? Here comes a straightforward conversation between Anders Sjöman (Stockholm) and Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) about the Centre for Business History in Stockholm. The organisation preserves Swedish business history since 1974 and has made a profitable business out of helping companies preserve their history and share their heritage. Why should we put money into preserving archive...

Is it advisable to combine colonial warfare with trade? Private interests with state interests for business?  A talk about early modern risk management, the birth of corporate finance and corporate governance during the Dutch Golden Age.  In this conversation, Joost Jonker (Utrecht) and Gabriella Massaglia ( eabh ) discuss the world's first corporation with modern features such as p...

Hyperinflation as a catalyst for transformation?  Nathan Marcus (Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva) & Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) discuss the extreme acceleration of inflation and its consequences at the end of the Austro- Hungarian Empire in 1918. The transition from a single economic space in Central Europe into separate national economies was marred by the experience of hyperinflation. N...

Are all wars fought for money? Kevin Clancy (Royal Mint London) & Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) in conversation about 500 years of experience with currency in Britain. Kevin  reveals some extraordinary cases in history that remind us of the close relationship between money and power, wars' influence over currency and currency reform, the public relations of money and the role of...

A story of empires, of financing war and risk and reward in uncertain times.  Larry Neal (Illinois) & Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) in conversation about the underrated role of individuals in financial history - compared to the role of political actors; the Louisiana Purchase as an 'unprecedented financial deal'; the emergence of internationally marketable sovereign debt and other options of fi...

Is there good beyond profit?  Lilia Costabile (University of Naples) and Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) take a long view back at the creation and functioning of the Public Banks of Naples in the 16th century. These banks developed as auxiliary departments of charitable institutions and became the backbone of the Kingdom's financial and economic success. How did they achieve long-lasting success and...

In their talk about Gentlemen Bankers, Susie Pak (St. John's University) & Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) focus on the social and economic circles of one of America's most renowned and influential financiers: J.P. Morgan. Susie tells an intriguing story about how economic and political interests intersected with personal rivalries and friendships among the Wall Street aristocracy during the first hal...

Are we back to the inflationary environment of the 1970s? During these tumultuous times of post covid recovery, unprecedented monetary policies, and the War in Ukraine, Thomas Mayer (Flossbach von Storch) & Carmen Hofmann (eabh) talk about money and debt in historical perspective, about what drives inflation, the role of the state and the revolutionary idea of digital currency competition as t...

Hugo Bänziger ( eabh ) and Walter Kielholz (Swiss Re), two leading figures in finance in the 1980s and 90s give true insights into the banking and insurance business in a period of change from nationalisation to privatisation, when the spreads between lending and borrowing were immense and the states involvement in the business resulted in endless piles of paper rather than countries economic deve...

Filipe Fernandes (Banco de Portugal) & Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) talk about the Bank of Portugal, modern Portuguese history, the vast extent of the Bank's archive and one of the most famous cases of financial fraud. 

Hugo Bänziger ( eabh ) and Thomas Mayer (Flossbach von Storch Research Institute) discuss Monetary Unions from the Latin Currency Union to the European Monetary Union of today. Why are monetary unions created? Which are the drivers? If monetary unions are mere devices to obtain political power, what motivates independent countries to join? Do political aspirations always dominate economic rea...

Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) and April Miller (The World Bank Group) talk about archival material from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and how to inspire history research. April gives fascinating insights into the workings of the World Bank Group, the oldest and largest global multi-regional and multi-sectoral development bank; a Bank that was set up to reconstruct Europe first and bring peace and prosperity t...

Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) and Christoph Trebesch (Kiel Institute) talk about Sovereign Debt in the 21st century.  Trebesch argues that we see a continuous trend of debt crises without default, meaning that governments are less willing to default than in the previous centuries and therefore have established wider safety nets of bailouts and rescue lending.  This conversation circles around...

Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) and Donato Masciandaro (Bocconi) talk about pandemic recession, central banking and a radical idea that reemerges whenever economic conditions become critical. Can we find a historical precedent for unprecedented monetary policies in 1630 Venice after all?

In this episode we discuss 700 years of interest rates.  Together with Paul Schmelzing (Harvard/Bank of England) we will find out why interest rates are continuously declining since the Middle Ages and why history is the perfect lab to study tail events. What kind of animal are interest rates? What drives long-term rates? And how is this trend a capital accumulation story equally relevant to...

Hugo Bänziger ( eabh ) and Barry Eichengreen (Berkeley) look to the past and the future of the international monetary system.  15 August, 1971 marked the end of the Bretton Woods system, terminating the convertibility of the US dollar to gold. From this point onwards global exchange rates started to float freely and monetary institutions around the world were looking for new monetary anchors....

Get to know Her Majesty's Treasury: Its 1000 years history, characterised by continuity and evolution; its relationship with the Bank of England and the important role it plays in a world after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, which lies in the past, yet is present at many institutions' balance sheets. Carmen Hofmann ( eabh ) in conversation with Mario Pisani (HM Treasury). Mario Pisani's full...

Carmen Hofmann (eabh) in conversation with Marie Laperdrix (Head of Archives and History at BNP Paribas). In this episode we discover the apparent and the hidden treasures of one of Europe's most significant financial archives. The BNP company archive, Marie claims, holds invaluable information about our societies and contributes to the transparency of our democracies. The content of their collect...