Journal of European Economic History - 2014 issue 3


Editore
Bancaria Editrice
Anno
2014
Pagine
186
Richiedi informazioni

Call for papers
The European Banking Union Reconsidered.
Lessons from Economic History
In response to the financial crisis that emerged in 2007-2008, the European Union pursued a number of new initiatives to create a sounder financial sector. A Banking Union was envisaged. A Single Rulebook was formed for all the financial players in the 28 Member States of the EU, and a Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and a Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) were established for the Eurozone. Bank ing Union is a critical step towards a tighter union in Europe, and its success or failure can also have an impact on the ultimate goal of political union.

ARTICLES
Financial Improvisations during World War I in France: Issues of Liquidity
This article highlights the improvisations in financial management during World War I. The option of a moratorium on bank deposits to the detriment of rediscount reflected a refusal to allow the Banque de France to fulfil its role of lender of last resort. The subsequent choice of a preference for a floating debt laid the foundation for a loss of control over the money market by the French monetary authorities. The article questions the relationship of WWI contemporaries with liquidity.
Protectionism and the "Economic War" in Interwar Ireland
By the time of the Great Depression in October 1929 the economy of the Irish Free State, Saorstát Éireann, was still suffering fallout from the war of independence, a civil war and the partition of the country, which had dismembered the industrial north-east from the rest of the country. Partition had left the island divided not only politically, but two distinct economic systems had been carved out, with one region agriculturally dominant, the other industrially dependent. The movement for independence in the Free State had been driven by the farming communities across the south and with the creation of a twenty-six county economic policy framework there emerged a systemic bias towards this rural base. The result was a southern administration that had taken on the burden of rebuilding an economy that had been emasculated from its industrial hub, wasted by the war, and given the liability of transition through the Anglo-Irish Treaty (6 December 1921). By the mid-1920s the architecture of the southern Irish economy was such that protectionism had already been silting up economic development, while the internal market had remained frustrated by prolonged stagnation. It meant that the economy of Saorstát Éireann was affected to a lesser extent during the depression than many other regions of Europe - including the designated ‘dominion’ of Northern Ireland that had been more integrated into the global market. This article will assess the extent to which the Irish economy was affected by the Great Depression and how the respective Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil governments managed this period in Irish economic history. It will also connect this to partition itself, ideological bias, the depression in the north and how both governments struggled to address the implications of global economic meltdown.
The Ottoman External Debt and Its Features Under European Financial Control (1881-1914)
This study analyzes the most important phases of the Ottoman Empire’s foreign debt between 1881 and 1914. Examining the three major financial operations of the period - 1881, 1890-92 and 1903 - we can document the way in which foreign loans, as well as increasing the empire’s public spending, served the ends the great European powers imposed upon the Ottoman governing class. At the same time, the choice for foreign loans and deficit spending seemed to be the only path towards some form of modernization of the state open to the Ottoman Empire and so to a role within the European context which, if not equal to that of the great players, might at least be that of a regional power.

NOTES
Church and Finance in Modern Italy: Some Historiographical Comments
This paper deals with the relationship between the Church and the Italian financial system during the period between the nineteenth and twentieth century. It also takes advantage of the national historiography published in the last fifteen years. After noting why this is a topic worthy of interest for economic history, it offers a detailed analysis of the most recent studies focusing on different areas. First, it considers the development of the cooperative credit at the national level, as well as the difficulties of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan. Second, it analyzes the complex functioning of charities and religious orders distributed over the entire peninsula, including canteens bishop. Third, it offers a research perspective on asset management and then financial administration of the Church, as has also been made for Italian dioceses. The role of territories is also highlighted, along with that of relational networks that nurture them, as well as that of the local development that is generated in such a way, of the care services guaranteed in each community from different ecclesiastical bodies as financial actors. In short, it proposes an increasingly complex and varied way to describe the role of the Church dealing with economic and social modernity.

PROBLEMS
"Sharp Practice" among Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (1620-1632)
King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden was dependent on the sale of copper from the Stora Kopparberg mine in Falun, Sweden, to underwrite his military campaigns in northern Europe. This article examines the ethics of the king’s representatives in Amsterdam and the prominent merchants through whom the king sold his copper. The article concludes that the king was not well served and notes several examples of outright deceit perpetrated by men he trusted. In addition to correspondence, the article relies heavily on the financial records prepared by merchants and royal servants to document copper transactions in Amsterdam. The article further concludes that historians from the last century, who examined the Swedish-Dutch copper trade, failed to notice the pervasive unethical behaviour of the participants in Amsterdam. These scholars concentrated on reports and contracts that laid out plans, but they neglecting to study the balance-sheets that specify actual quantities of copper sold or mortgaged.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS
D.G. Barriera
Abrir puertas a la tierra. Microanálisis de la construcción de un espacio político. Santa Fe, 1573-1640
Oscar José Trujillo

M. Di Tullio, L. Fois
Stati di guerra. I bilanci della Lombardia francese del primo Cinquecento
Giacomo Lorandi

G. Farese, P. Savona
Il banchiere del mondo. Eugene Robert Black e l’ascesa della cultura dello sviluppo in Italia
Alessandro Albanese Ginammi

C. Lamfalussy, I. Maes, S. Peters
Alexandre Lamfalussy. The Wise Man of the Euro
Giovanni Farese

D. Manetti
"Un’arma poderosissima". Industria cinematografica e Stato durante il fascismo (1922-1943)
Andrea Giuntini