Government Debts and Financial Markets in Europe

Contains essays by historians of economic and financial history. It illuminates the relationships between government indebtedness and the development of financial markets in Europe from the late Middle Ages to the late twentieth century. Introduction; 1: The Financial Administration of North Hanseatic Cities in the Late Middle Ages: Development, Organization and Politics; 2: Government Debts and Credit Markets in Renaissance Italy; 3: Government Debts and Financial Markets in Castile Between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries; 4: Government Debt and Financial Markets: Exploring Pro-Cycle Effects in Northern Italy during the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries; 5: Government Policies and the Development of Financial Markets: The Case of Madrid in the Seventeenth Century; 6: The Role Played by Short-Term Credit in the Spanish Monarchy's Finances; 7: From Subordination to Autonomy: Public Debt Policies and the Creation of a Self-Ruled Financial Market in the Kingdom of Naples in the Long Run (1500-1800); 8: Public Debt in the Papal States: Financial Market and Government Strategies in the Long Run (Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries); 9: Towards a New Public Credit Policy in Eighteenth-Century Spain: The Introduction of the Tesorer?a Mayor De Guerra (1703-6); 10: French Public Finance between 1683 and 1726; 11: Long-Term War Loans and Market Expectations in England, 1743-50; 12: Mercantilist Institutions for the Pursuit of Power with Profit: The Management of Britain's National Debt, 1756-1815; 13: Italian Government Debt Sustainability in the Long Run, 1861-2000; 14: Times of Wasteful Abundance: The Apogee of the Fiscal State in the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s; Conclusion: Final Remarks