Financial Market History

Comprising contributions by 22 leading financial historians, the monograph is organized into four main sections. The first section discusses the current state of academic research on the risk and return of such traditional assets as stocks, bonds, bills, and currencies, as well as such alternative assets as real estate, collectibles, precious metals, and diamonds. Practitioners can benefit from the great care that financial historians bring to the collection and construction of historical datasets such as these. The more reliable the quantitative information about long-term returns that investors possess, the more informed their investment decisions will be. The second section focuses on the historical development of stock markets. There are chapters on the growth and development of the London Stock Exchange, the world's most important market until 1913; the evolution of trading on the New York Stock Exchange in the early 20th century; and the development of IPO markets around the world over the last 100 years or so. Bubbles are usually mentioned in the same breath as stock markets. Hence, the third section discusses what we can learn from studying previous stock market bubbles.