Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- In Memoriam: Kenneth L. Sokoloff
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I HEALTH AND LIVING STANDARDS
- PART II INSTITUTIONS AND SCHOOLING
- PART III HUMAN CAPITAL OUTLIERS
- PART IV CONSTRAINTS IN LABOR AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
- 9 Suffrage and the Terms of Labor
- 10 Prodigals and Projectors: An Economic History of Usury Laws in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900
- Index
- References
10 - Prodigals and Projectors: An Economic History of Usury Laws in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900
from PART IV - CONSTRAINTS IN LABOR AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2009
By
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- In Memoriam: Kenneth L. Sokoloff
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I HEALTH AND LIVING STANDARDS
- PART II INSTITUTIONS AND SCHOOLING
- PART III HUMAN CAPITAL OUTLIERS
- PART IV CONSTRAINTS IN LABOR AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
- 9 Suffrage and the Terms of Labor
- 10 Prodigals and Projectors: An Economic History of Usury Laws in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900
- Index
- References
Summary
WHY SHOULD ECONOMIC HISTORIANS STUDY USURY LAWS?
With a few notable exceptions, such as Friedman (1963) and Glaeser and Scheinkman (1998), historians and economists writing about the financial history of the United States have ignored usury laws. Many of the classic financial histories of the United States do not even mention them. Yet there are several good reasons for studying usury laws. For one thing usury laws have been, arguably, the most common form of economic regulation. Usury is mentioned in the Bible and the Koran. There were usury laws in ancient Rome, although not in classical Athens (Finley 1953). And, the medieval canonists developed a detailed theory of usury. Usury laws have not been confined to countries influenced by European cultural traditions. In India, during the Buddhist period, it was recommended that interest be limited to 15 percent per year on secured loans and to 60 percent per year on unsecured loans (Seth 1955, 6). In traditional China the maximum rate was 3 percent per month, and the penalty for charging more was 40 to 100 blows with the light cane (Alabaster 1899, 550–51). Usury laws, moreover, have been the subject of classic works of literature, such as The Merchant of Venice. The usury laws in England were repealed in 1854 (although legislation protecting borrowers was reinstated at the turn of the century), but in the United States they were continued in many U.S. states down to the present day.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Human Capital and InstitutionsA Long-Run View, pp. 285 - 324Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
. 1899. Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law, and Cognate Topics. London: Luzac & Co.Google Scholar
. 1952–54. Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings. Critical edition based on his printed works and unprinted mss., ed. . London: Allen & Unwin, for the Royal Economic Society.Google Scholar
, and . 1965. “The Economics of Usury Regulation.” Journal of Political Economy 73 (Dec.): 608–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . 1992. “Regional Interest Rates in Antebellum America.” In Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel, eds. and . Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the NBER, pp. 159–87.Google Scholar
. 1668. Brief Observations Concerning Trade and Interest of Money. London: Printed for Elizabeth Calvert at the Black-spread Eagle in Barbican, and Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the White-Heart in Westminster Hall. [McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca:80/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html].Google Scholar
. 1905–07. The Growth of English Industry and Commerce. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
., , and others. 1881. Usury laws: Their Nature, Expediency, and Influence. New York: The Society for Political Education.Google Scholar
1960. “The New England Textile Mills and the Capital Markets: A Study of Industrial Borrowing 1840–1860.” Journal of Economic History 20 (March): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1965. “The Investment Market, 1870–1914: The Evolution of a National Market.” Journal of Economic History 25 (Sep.): 355–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 1946. The Economic Mind in American Civilization. Volume 2, 1606–1865. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
. 1984. “Mortgage Interest Rates in the Populist Era.” American Economic Review 74 (Dec.): 995–1015.Google Scholar
. 1987. “Agricultural Mortgages in the Populist Era: Reply to Snowden.” Journal of Economic History 47 (Sep.): 757–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . 2005. “The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World.” Journal of Economic History 65 (Dec.): 891–921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1938. Chapters in the History of Social Legislation in the United States to 1860, ed. . Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
1953. “Land, Debt, and the Man of Property in Classical Athens.” Political Science Quarterly 68 (June): 249–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1963. “The Usury Laws of Wisconsin: A Study in Legal and Social History.” Wisconsin Law Review (July): 515–65.Google Scholar
1957. “English Calvinist Opinion on Usury, 1600–1640.” Journal of the History of Ideas 18 (Oct.): 455–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . 1998. “Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be: An Economic Analysis of Interest Restrictions and Usury Laws.” Journal of Law and Economics 41 (April): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 1970. Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
1895. “The State Bank of Indiana.” Journal of Political Economy 4 (Dec.): 1–36; “Appendix: Tables Relating to the State Bank of Indiana,” 109–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1892. “Usury in Law, in Practice and in Psychology.” Political Science Quarterly (Sep.): 431–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . 1895. “Report on real estate mortgages in the United States at the eleventh census, 1890.” Reports of the eleventh census of the United States, 1890, vs. 12. Washington, DC: G.P.O.Google Scholar
1977. The Transformation of American Law: 1780–1860. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
1915. “A History of Banking and Currency in Ohio before the Civil War.” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications XXIV: 442–50.Google Scholar
1989. God and the Money Lenders: Usury and the Law in Early Modern England. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
. 1863. “The Usury Laws and the National Banking System.” Bankers Magazine, New Series, 12: 161–66.Google Scholar
. 1965 [1936]. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
1998. “Using the Merchant of Venice in Teaching Monetary Economics.” Journal of Economic Education 29 (Fall): 330–39.Google Scholar
1969. Documentary History of Banking and Currency in the United States. 4 volumes. New York: Chelsea House.Google Scholar
. 1961. Principles of Economics. 9th (variorum), ed. . London, New York: Macmillan for the Royal Economic Society.Google Scholar
. Principles of Political Economy, edited by . London: Longman's Green and Co., 1940. The first edition appeared in 1848; the seventh edition, the last revised by Mill, was published in 1871.Google Scholar
1924. “Earlier Theories of Crises and Cycles in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 38 (Feb.): 294–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 2001. “The Origins of the Modern Financial Revolution: Responses to Impediments from Church and State in Western Europe, 1200–1600>.” University of Toronto, Department of Economics, Working Paper, 2001–02.
. 1969. The Idea of Usury: From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
. 2003. “In Medio Stat Virtus: An Alternative View of Usury in Adam Smith's Thinking.” History of Political Economy 35 (Spring): 21–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 1950. “Distress, Relief, and Discontent in the United States during the Depression of 1873–78.” Journal of Political Economy 58 (Dec.): 494–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . 1935. Regulation of the Small Loan Business. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
. 1989. Law, Politics, and the Economy: Changing Patterns of Growth in Debtor-Creditor Laws, New York State, 1785–1860. PhD dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
. 1924. Usury and Usury Laws: A Juristic-Economic Study of the Effects of State Statutory Maximums for Loan Charges upon Lending Operations in the United States. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
1955. “Indian Money-Lender in Pre-British Times.” The Research Bulletin (Arts), University of Panjab (Nov.), XV Economics I. Hoshiarpur, India: Vishveshvaranand Book Agency.Google Scholar
. 1979 [1776]. An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Glasgow edition of the Works of , general eds. and . Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1987. “Mortgage Rates and American Capital Market Development in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Economic History 47 (Sep.): 671–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1988. “Mortgage Lending and American Urbanization, 1880–1890.” Journal of Economic History 48 (June): 273–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 1998 [1767]. Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, edited by ; contributing editors, and . Brookfield, VT: Pickering & Chatto.Google Scholar
, and . 1981. “Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information.” American Economic Review 71 (June): 393–410.Google Scholar
1942. “The Concept of ‘Usury’: the History of an Idea.” Journal of the History of Ideas 3 (June): 291–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2002. “An Empty Shell? Rethinking the Usury Laws in Medieval Europe.” Journal of Legal History 23 (Dec.): 77–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1925. “Introduction” to A Discourse Upon Usury by Way of Dialogue and Orations by (1572), 1–172. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
, and . 1984. “John Shakespeare in the Exchequer.” Shakespeare Quarterly 35 (Autumn): 315–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial Edition. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
. 1864. Annual Report.
. 1797. “Letter to George Ball, May 7.” The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html.
2001. “California Banking in the Nineteenth Century: The Art and Method of the Bank of A. Levy.” Business History Review 75 (Summer): 297–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2001. A Financial Interpretation of Early U.S. History. Mimeo, University of Virginia.Google Scholar
- 7
- Cited by