The Political Economy of Global Financial Liberalisation in Historical Perspective

Rui Esteves

No _089, Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper is a first attempt to garner the theory and evidence on the political economy of the first wave of financial liberalisation during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and of its demise after World War I. Not everyone gained from the process of globalisation (of trade, labour, and finance), which brought about important changes in the structure of the economy and the distribution of income in nations across the world. This paper explores how the economic incentives generated by these dislocations translated, through the political system, into choices about openness to foreign capital and financial integration. The period before World War I is remarkable by the almost absence of restrictions on cross-border capital flows, which may explain the little attention it has received in the historical literature, compared to the extensive study of trade protectionism in this period. After the War, many countries experimented with capital controls which varied in nature and intensity and were intensified during the Depression. Despite the attempt made here to reconcile these stylized facts to models of political economy, the analysis requires a better empricial foundation and some suggestions for further research are also proposed.

Keywords: Political economy; financial liberalisation; capital controls; pre-war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F4 G18 N20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-06-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9ef14c45-2260-4981-94ed-145f595d6ffb

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_089

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anne Pouliquen ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).