We analyze the effects of ownership of liberty bonds on election outcomes in the 1920s. We find that counties with higher liberty bond ownership rates turned against the Democratic Party in the presidential elections of 1920 and 1924. This was a reaction to the depreciation of the bonds prior to the 1920 election (when the Democrats held the presidency) and the appreciation of the bonds in the early 1920s (under a Republican president), as the Federal Reserve raised and then subsequently lowered interest rates. Our analysis suggests that the liberty bond campaigns had unintended political consequences.

This article presents a critical survey of ten books from the history of capitalism, a newly emerging subfield of history. At their best, the books offer provocative insights and vivid descriptions of some of the darker episodes of our economic past. Yet specious arguments and failures of analytical reasoning sometimes undermine these books' effectiveness as social criticism. I highlight insights from the field of economic history that would strengthen the work of historians of capitalism. I also suggest some opportunities for dialogue, if not collaboration, between the two communities of scholars.

Using newly collected data, this article compares the wealth and status of New York City households who owned corporate stock to the general population both in 1791, when there were only two corporations in the state, and in 1826, when there were hundreds. The results indicate that although corporate stock was held principally by the city's elite merchants in both periods, share ownership became more widespread over time among less affluent households. In particular, later corporations were owned and managed by investors who were less wealthy than the stockholders of corporations created in earlier, less democratic periods.

In 1822 New York became the first of many common law states to authorize the formation of limited partnerships. Little is known about the effects of these statutes. This article analyzes the use of the limited partnership in nineteenth-century New York City. We find that the form was adopted by a surprising number of firms, and that limited partnerships had more capital, failed at lower rates, and had fewer members with kinship ties, compared to ordinary partnerships. The results suggest that the introduction of the limited partnership facilitated investments that would not have occurred in the absence of the form.

In July of 1826, a financial panic on Wall Street caused several companies to fail abruptly and precipitated runs on two of New York City's fifteen banks. Life and Fire Insurance became the largest of the bankruptcies. In violation of New York's banking statutes, the firm had engaged in lending on a massive scale during the speculative boom that prevailed in 1824–25. Innovative lending techniques had been developed outside the traditional banking sector—in this case, in the insurance industry. These lending practices, based on an instrument known as a post note, were initially sound, but were later extended to riskier borrowers and ultimately proved ruinous. In the credit crisis that began in late 1825, the value of the Life and Fire's assets fell dramatically, and in a desperate effort to raise cash, the directors resorted to fraud.

This article analyzes the ownership structures and governance institutions of New York's corporations in the 1820s, using a new dataset collected from the records of the state's 1823 capital tax, and from the corporate charters. In contrast to Berle and Means's account of the development of the corporation, the results indicate that many firms were dominated by large shareholders, who were represented on the firms' boards, and held sweeping power to utilize the firms' resources for their own benefit. To address this problem, many firms configured their voting rights in a way that curtailed the power of large investors.

This article analyzes the connection between investment decisions and financing arrangements in the nineteenth-century American whaling industry. Managers of whaling ventures shared their risks by selling some equity claims but retained a substantial portion due to moral hazard considerations. As a result, they had little incentive to consider the covariance between their own returns, and those of others, in planning their voyages. This stifled diversity in whaling voyages and increased industry-wide risk. The analysis suggests a link between financial market development, or the extent of risk sharing in financial markets, and the range of economic activities pursued.