International Capital Markets and American Economic Growth, 1820–1914

This book provides quantitative assessments and qualitative descriptions of foreign investment in the US and American investment abroad.

Lance E. Davis (Author), Robert J. Cull (Author)

9780521460545, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 August 1994

178 pages, 26 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.43 kg

"This small book manages to cram a lot into a little, and to do it rather well." James R. Lothian, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

This book is a study of the capital transfers to the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, for the latter decades of that period, of the transfers from the United States to the rest of the world - particularly Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America. It provides a quantitative estimate of the level and industrial composition of those transfers, and qualitative descriptions of the sources and uses of those funds; and it attempts to assess the role of those foreign transfers in the economic development of the recipient economies. In the process, it describes the evolution of the American domestic capital market. Finally, it explores the issue of domestic political response to foreign investment, attempting to explain why the political reaction was so negative and so intense in Latin America and in the American West, but so positive in Canada and the eastern United States.

1. The international flow of finance: an overview
Introduction
Net flows of capital
2. The sources and uses of foreign capital
The sources and the industrial disposition of foreign capital: the quantitative evidence
The sources and the industrial disposition of foreign capital: the qualitative evidence
a) 1803–40
b) 1840–1914: railroads
c) 1840–1914: government securities
d) 1840–1914: land-related investments
e) 1840–1914: commerce and manufacturing
3. The economic, social, and political response to foreign investment in the United States
The American response
The response of foreign investors
4. Two securities markets: London and New York
The London and New York Stock Exchanges in the late 19th century
The American domestic capital market and the demand for foreign capital
5. American investments abroad
Introduction
The early years: 1797–1896
Towards maturity: 1897–1914
6. Summary and conclusions.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]