Financial crises have been a common feature of the economic landscape for more than two centuries. The chapter defines banking crises, considers the type of costs that they impose, and outlines the most common causes of banking crises during the past 200 years. The remainder of the chapter...

Substantial amounts of British capital flowed to Latin America during the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Companies financed by this capital were typically headquartered in the UK, but operated thousands of miles away. This paper asks how this separation between...

In 1983 Israeli bank shares collapsed following several years during which the bank had actively intervened to promote share prices and thereby contributed to a 300% rise in real terms. During the crisis the government assumed control of the banks, which they did not begin to sell back to the...

This paper presents new monthly capital gains, dividend yield, and total return indices for common equities quoted on British stock exchanges from 1829 to 1929. As well as creating an all-share index, we create a blue-chip index of the 30 largest companies, which we splice to the Financial Times...