Inhalt
Aufsatz: Seite 107–123
Martin Espenhorst
More than a Principle
The History of Savings Banks in the Course of Stein's Städteordnung, 1808–1838
The interest in savings banks was always strong when the issue was the development of new social protection systems. The reform of the principles of municipal self-administration initiated by Baron vom Stein (Stein'sche Städteordnung), introduced in 1808, provided such tools as were required for the savings banks to prosper – to start with, in mehr...
Prussia. The notion of a savings bank was not a novel one at that time. The first 'proto-savings bank' in Hamburg had already been established in 1778, and the political economist Johann Heinrich Justi developed tangible ideas about savings banks as early as 1761. But only in exceptional cases were savings banks founded before 1808. Although the notion of savings banks corresponded to a large extent with the goals of the Enlightenment in the second half of the 18th century, the development of savings banks obviously needed a completely new impetus – namely the reform of the principles of municipal self-administration introduced by Baron vom Stein – in order to be successful across the entire country. It has to be said that there is no direct link between the municipalisation of the savings banks after 1808 and the Enlightenment discourse of the time prior to that. Only now, one had a new approach for interweaving sociopolitical and municipal tasks with 'commercial' issues. The fact that vom Stein handled the question of savings banks personally and reserved a special place for them in the (re-)organization of the cities and municipalities will be demonstrated in this article.
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Aufsatz: Seite 124–150
Alexander Troschke / Friedrich Thießen
Was wusste Markowitz? Die Geschichte der Diversifikation / The History of Diversification
Diversification is one of the most important phenomena in finance. Its origins are hardly explored. Mark Rubinstein assumed, Markowitz’ paper of 1952 "seemed to come out of nowhere". It is the aim of this article to explain the history of diversification in science and practice in order to show what was known, when Markowitz wrote his ingenious article mehr...
of 1952. Taken together we find that financial markets developed a surprisingly good intuitive understanding of diversification as early as risk became a commercial problem. Various aspects of the correlation phenomenon had been discussed in the financial markets among practitioners long before Markowitz. One finds the descriptions of market phenomena with correlation coefficients of zero (for which diversification was suggested as a good instrument), of minus one (for which hedging was proposed as early as 1924), of plus one (especially in crises, for which authors warned to rely on diversification) and of correlation coefficients between plus one and zero. Markowitz' base was neither this knowledge of practitioners nor such literature. His outstanding conclusions were mainly the result of using an innovative framework for the formal description of the diversification problem. The main conceptual ideas for this framework are derived from science, i.e. the work of the Econometric Society of 1930 and the Cowles Commission of 1932.
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Miszelle: Seite 151–165
Claudio Marsilio
"Four times a year for so many years"
The Italian Exchange Fairs during the XVIth–XVIIth Centuries
The Genoese fairs inherited the features of a time-honoured institution which improved itself through the subsequent stages of Geneva, Lyon Piacenza and finally Novi. This economic and financial institution reached its zenith between the end of the XVIth Century and the beginning of the XVIIth Century; starting from 1580 almost all European mehr...
International transactions were settled right in Piacenza fairs of exchange every three months. During the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries the Genoese bankers offered many financial services all around Europe at such high levels that not many competitors were able to contrast them. This paper aims to show that their success was due to their preminent role in financing the Spanish Monarchy from the first loans of the XVIth Century – the asiento – to, at least, the last years of the XVIIth Century. At 'Bisenzone', Genoese bankers raised money for these loans from a variety of sources reducing the risks of lending and funded the king's long-term obligations via short term loans. The prime mover of the Genoese exchange fairs was – more than International commerce – the huge volume of transactions generated by the Spanish Crown's public debt and the financial speculations of the most influential European financial operators (Genoese and Florentine above all). Piacenza and later on Novi became the main operating market where an increasing number of operators coming from all the European trading markets were gathered together and where the volume of transactions multiplied. In 1621, the Genoese bankers decided in a high-ended manner to transfer the seat of the fair to Novi, on the territory of their independent Republic, producing a long lasting rupture in the Italian bankers' network. The exchange fairs of Novi created an efficient financial network under Genoese control and permitted arbitrage among the other northern Italian financial markets (Piacenza, Verona, Bolzano). Undoubtedly Genoese fairs' network resulted an excellent mechanism to process and manage the financial information and an efficient system to transfer precious metals to different creditors all over Europe.
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Rezensionen: Seite 166–180
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Literaturbericht: Seite 181–198
Literaturbericht
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