Questioning Credible Commitment

D'Maris Coffman is the Mary Bateson Research Fellow at Newnham College, Director of the Centre for Financial History and Affiliated Lecturer in the History Faculty, University of Cambridge. Adrian Leonard is a Bateman Scholar at Trinity Hall and an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Financial History, Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Larry Neal is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

• 1. Introduction D'Maris Coffman and Larry Neal; 2. Could the crown credibly commit to respecting its charters? England, 1558–1640 Ron Harris; 3. Contingent commitment: the development of English marine insurance in the context of New Institutional Economics, 1577–1720 Adrian Leonard; 4. Credibility, transparency, accountability and the public credit under the Long Parliament and Commonwealth, 1643–53 D'Maris Coffman; 5. Jurisdictional controversy and the credibility of common law Julia Rudolph; 6. The importance of not defaulting: the significance of the election of 1710 James Macdonald; 7. Financing and refinancing the War of the Spanish Succession, then refinancing the South Sea Company Ann M. Carlos, Erin K. Fletcher, Larry Neal and Kirsten Wandschneider; 8. Sovereign debts, political structure, and institutional commitments in Italy, 1350–1700 Luciano Pezzolo; 9. Bounded leviathan: fiscal constraints and financial development in the Early Modern Hispanic world Alejandra Irigoin and Regina Grafe; 10. Court capitalism, illicit markets, and political legitimacy in eighteenth century France: the example of the salt and tobacco monopolies Michael Kwass; 11. Institutions, deficits, and wars: the determinants of British government borrowing costs from the end of the seventeenth century to 1850 Nathan Sussman and Yishay Yafeh; Index.

'Credible commitment is fundamental to finance. This volume of excellent essays by financial historians explores the salient institutional theories about the development of credible commitment. In doing so, it illuminates a watershed period in the emergence of the modern economy.' William N. Goetzmann, Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies, and Director, International Center for Finance, Yale University