For most of its 600-year existence, the economic institutions and policies of the Ottoman Empire were shaped to a large degree by the priorities and interests of a central bureaucracy. The influence of landowners, merchants and moneychangers remained limited. The central bureaucracy managed to contain the many challenges it faced with pragmatism, flexibility and negotiation. This study examines long-term changes in Ottoman fiscal, monetary and financial institutions from this perspective of pragmatism, flexibility and adaptiveness. Ottoman institutions of private and public finance retained their Islamic lineage until the end of the seventeenth century. European financial institutions began to grow in influence during the eighteenth century. With the onset of the Ottoman reform movement and greater economic interaction with Europe during the nineteenth century, institutional change accelerated. Ultimately, however, Ottoman pragmatism and flexibility remained selective and was utilised for the defence of a traditional order led by the central bureaucracy. Many of the key institutions of the traditional order such as state ownership of land, urban guilds and restrictions on private capital accumulation remained intact until the nineteenth century.

Hong Kong is one of the world's top five international financial centres, but this is mainly due to banking activity in the territory. The stock exchange is relatively poorly developed, ranking only tenth by market capitalisation in 2002. In common with emerging stock markets in Asia and elsewhere, the Hong Kong exchange tended to be used as a speculative outlet for both small and large investors, which led to wide fluctuations in prices. This article explores how the development of the exchanges in the 1960s and 1970s, and the combination of self-regulation and poor external supervision contributed to weaknesses in the stock market in Hong Kong.

The UK annuity market is one of the largest in the world and of considerable importance for research on pensions, and understanding the decumulation phase in defined-contribution pension schemes. Time-series data for UK annuity rates has hitherto been unavailable. This article presents data for the period 1957 to 2002 and describes how the data were constructed.

This article examines the Nazi government's external debt policy, with particular regard to the service of the Dawes and Young Loans, the two most important international loans Germany concluded during the interwar period. The goal of this policy was to end once and for all the obligations resulting from the First World War reparations settlement, and at the same time to economise drastically on Germany's scarce foreign exchange reserves. These aims were achieved by imposing a partial default on external debts and by bilateralising trade and financial negotiations, thus dismantling the 1930 Young Plan. In many respects, the Nazi government continued policies in place since 1931, except that it went further and was more ruthless in their execution. However, the negative long-term effects of this policy were beginning to take their toll as Germany's economy was cut off from the international financial markets and increasingly burdened by complex foreign exchange regulations. It was left to the German Federal Republic to deal with the financial legacy of this policy after the war.

Using the transfer records and ledger books of the Bank of England, this article examines women's market activity during and after the South Sea Bubble. Women are classified by marital or social status. During 1720, women's activity constituted 13 per cent of transactions measured by value, 10 per cent of total sales and 8 per cent of total purchases. While individual women lost and made money from their market activity, women's net position over the Bubble was positive. We also provide a case study of Johanna Cock, one of the larger broker/jobbers in Bank stock. By September 1720, women made up 20 per cent of Bank shareholders holding 10 per cent of the capital stock. By September 1725, women held nearly 15 per cent of a much larger capital stock.

This article examines how trading on two geographically separate financial markets reflected political events before and during World War II. Specifically, we compare sovereign debt prices on the Zurich and Stockholm stock exchanges and find considerable (but not complete) symmetry in the price responses across the two markets in relation to turning points in the war, which suggests that markets worked efficiently. The use of a quantitative methodology on historical financial market data represents a useful complement to traditional historical analysis, offering large-scale evidence of individuals acting in their own pecuniary interest without producing any lasting systematic biases.

Many commentators have contended that British banking lacked competition for much of the twentieth century. This article examines a range of evidence relating to English clearing banks in the middle decades of the century, when the banking ‘cartel’ was believed to be at its strongest. Data on interest rates charged and paid, rate spreads, profitability and expenses ratios, including new evidence from archival sources, are considered. Some propositions about cartels are supported, others contradicted, and some left unresolved. We conclude that the banking ‘cartel’ can be described as ‘soft’, rather than ‘hard’ – that is, one which agreed strict output quotas and profits shares among its members.