What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of
the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the long run …

We analyze the development and performance of the British equity market during the era
when it reigned supreme as the largest in the world. Using an extensive monthly dataset of …

Newly assembled datasets on the size and composition of the London Stock Exchange
present some results contradicting conventional wisdom. A forensic examination of one …

Who financed the great expansion of the Victorian equity market, and what attracted them to
invest? Using data on 453 firm-years and over 172,000 shareholders, we find that the …

This paper constructs annual data for the wealth-income ratio, WY, for the UK over the
period 1210–2013. It is found that the WY ratio has fluctuated at one-two century frequencies …

In this article, using new estimates of the size of the UK's capital market, we examine
financial development and investor protection laws in Britain c. 1900 to test the influential …

Historical rates of return on investments have received increasing scholarly attention in
recent years. Much literature has focused especially on colonies, where institutions have …

This book addresses both domestic and foreign readers, and for that reason appears in
English. Following the survey of history of the Lisbon Exchange published in 1996 by David …

This study looks at the valuation of UK investment trusts for the 50 years following their
appearance as companies in the 1880s. Based on a large and unique dataset compiled …

This chapter tracks the volume and distribution of international investment since the mid-
nineteenth century. The first part presents quantitative evidence on the volume of capital …