?Man to Loan $1500 and Serve as Clerk?: Trading Jobs for Loans in Mid-Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

F. Halsey Rogers

The Journal of Economic History, 1994, vol. 54, issue 01, pages 34-63

Abstract: This paper explores the phenomenon of as practiced in mid-nineteenth-century California. A sample of newspaper advertisements from 1857 76 reveals that despite the obvious inefficiencies of linking labor and capital markets, job-loan trading was both common and profitable. I assess labor market bonding against moral hazard or adverse selection as a possible explanation, but conclude that the job-loan trades primarily provide evidence of substantial Pacific Coast capital market imperfections. This conclusion has implications for the broader question of how financial markets develop.

Date: 1994
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:54:y:1994:i:01:p:34-63_01

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