Real Effects of Supplying Safe Private Money
Journal of Financial Economics, 2024

Xu, Chenzi; Yang, He
Privately issued money often bears default risk, which creates transaction frictions when used as a medium of exchange. The late 19th century US provides a unique context to evaluate the real effects of supplying a new type of money that is safe from default. We measure the local change in "monetary" transaction frictions with a market access approach derived from general equilibrium trade theory. Consistent with theories hypothesizing that lowering transaction frictions benefits the traded and inputs-intensive sectors, we find an increase in traded goods production, in the share of manufacturing output and employment, and in innovation.

Shattered Housing
Journal of Financial Economics, 2024

Happel, Jonas; Karabulut, Yigitcan; Schafer, Larissa; Tuzel, Selale
Do negative housing shocks lead to persistent changes in household attitudes toward housing and homeownership? We use the residential destruction of Germany during World War II (WWII) as a quasi-experiment and exploit the reasonably exogenous region-by-cohort variation in destruction exposure. We find that WWII-experiencing cohorts from high destruction regions are significantly less likely to be homeowners decades later, controlling for regional differences and household characteristics. Underlying this effect are changes in household attitudes toward homeownership that also extend to preferences for housing consumption, with little or no support for risk preferences, income and wealth effects, or supply-side factors.

J'Accuse! Antisemitism and Financial Markets in the Time of the Dreyfus Affair
Journal of Financial Economics, 2024

Do, Quoc-Anh; Galbiati, Roberto; Marx, Benjamin; Ortiz Serrano, Miguel A.
We study the stock market performance of firms with Jewish board members during the "Dreyfus Affair" in 19th century France. In a context of widespread latent antisemitism, initial accusations made against the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus led to short-lived abnormal negative returns for Jewish-connected firms. However, investors betting on these firms earned higher returns during the period corresponding to Dreyfus' rehabilitation, starting with the publication of the famous op-ed J'Accuse! in 1898. Our conceptual framework illustrates how diminishing antisemitic biases among investors might plausibly explain these effects. Our paper provides novel insights on how antisemitism can increase and decrease over short periods of time at the highest socio-economic levels in response to certain events, which in turn can affect firm value in financial markets.

Sticky Wages and the Great Depression: Evidence from the United Kingdom
European Review of Economic History, 2023

Lennard, Jason
How sticky were wages during the Great Depression? Although classic accounts emphasise the importance of nominal rigidity in amplifying deflationary shocks, the evidence is limited. In this paper, I calculate the degree of nominal wage rigidity in the United Kingdom between the wars using new granular data covering millions of wages. I find that nominal wages changed infrequently but that wage cuts were more common than wage rises on average. Nominal wage adjustment fluctuated over time and by state, so that in 1931 amid falling output and prices more than one-third of workers received wage cuts.

Why Did Shareholder Liability Disappear?
Journal of Financial Economics, 2024

Bogle, David A.; Campbell, Gareth; Coyle, Christopher; Turner, John D.
Why did shareholder liability disappear? We address this question by looking at its use by British insurance companies until its complete disappearance. We explore three possible explanations for its demise: (1) regulation and government-provided policyholder protection meant that it was no longer required; (2) it had become de facto limited; and (3) shareholders saw an opportunity to expunge something they disliked when insurance companies grew in size. Using hand-collected archival data, our findings suggest investors attached a risk premium to companies with shareholder liability, and it was phased out as insurance companies expanded, which meant that they were better able to pool risks.