Kirsten Wandschneider

Assistant Professor of Economics and IPE

Download the syllabus in PDF format: SYLLABUS

WEEK 1
9/12: Introduction
Baskin and Miranti: A History of Corporate Finance, Chapter 1: Medieval and Renaissance Origins (distributed in class)

9/14: Medieval Institutions
Botticini: "A Tale of Benevolent Governments: Private Credit Markets, Public Finance, and the Role of Jewish Lenders in Medieval and Renaissance Italy", Journal of Economic History, 60, 1, 2000 (J-stor)

WEEK 2
9/19: The Origins of Coinage and Money
Sargent and Velde: "The Evolution of Small Change" (available online)

9/21: No class (I am out of town for a conference)

WEEK 3
Week of 9/25: Individual meetings about paper topics

9/26: Early Financial Crises: The Tulipmania
Garber: Famous First Bubbles, Chapter 2: The Tulipmania Legend (distributed in class)
Garber, Peter M.: "Tulipmania," Journal of Political Economy, 97(3), 1989 (J-stor)

9/28: Library Session with Brenda Ellis - Introduction to Historical Databases and Search Engines

WEEK 4
10/3: Early Corporations
Baskin and Miranti: A History of Corporate Finance, Chapter 2: Corporate Finance in the Age of Global Exploration (distributed in class)
Carlos and Nicholas: "Giants of an Earlier Capitalism: The Chartered Trading Companies as Modern Multinationals," Business History Review 62, 3, 1988 (J-stor)

10/5: Development of Financial Institutions
North and Weingast: "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth Century England," Journal of Economic History
49, 4, 1989 (J-stor)

WEEK 5
10/10: Financial Revolution in Britain
Neal: Rise of Financial Capitalism Chapter 1: Historical Background for the Rise of Financial Capitalism (distributed in class)
Neal: Rise of Financial Capitalism Chapter 3: The Early Capital Markets of London and Amsterdam (distributed in class)

10/12: The South Sea Bubble
Neal: Rise of Financial Capitalism Chapter 4: The Banque Royale and the South Sea Company: How the Bubbles Began (distributed in class)
Neal: Rise of Financial Capitalism Chapter 5: The Bank of England and the South Sea Company: How the Bubbles Ended (distributed in class)

WEEK 6
10/17: Midterm Recess, no class

10/19: Development of Public Debt Markets
Baskin & Miranti: A History of Corporate Finance, Chapter 3: The Emergence of Public Markets for Investment Securities (distributed in class)
Carlos, Neal, Wandschneider: "Origins of National Debt: The Financing and Re-financing of the War of the Spanish Succession" (available online)

WEEK 7
10/24: QUIZ I

10/26: Guest Speaker: Gail Triner, Rutgers University
Bordo and Flandreau: "Core, Periphery, Exchange Rate Regimes and Globalization"

WEEK 8
10/31: Introduction to Banking
Wright: The Wealth of Nations Rediscovered Chapter 3: Banks, Securities Markets and the Reduction of Asymmetric Information (distributed in class)
More complicated: Diamond and Dybvig: "Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance and Liquidity" Journal of Political Economy, 91, 3, 1983 (J-stor)

11/2: A US Perspective
Wright: The Wealth of Nations Rediscovered Chapter 4: The Financial Sector and the Reduction of Lending Related Costs and Risks (distributed in class)
Wright: The Wealth of Nations Rediscovered Chapter 5: Evidence of Capital market Integration 1800-1850 (distributed in class)

WEEK 9
11/7: Banking around the World
Guinnane: "Delegated Monitors Large and Small; Germany's Banking System, 1800-1914," Journal of Economic Literature, 40, 1, 2002 (J-stor)
Fohlin: "Universal Banking in Pre-WW I Germany: Model or Myth," Explorations in Economic History, 36, 1999 (J-stor)

11/9: The Great Depression
Friedman & Schwartz (1963): A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Chapter 7 (distributed in class)

WEEK 10
11/14: The Great Depression - A Closer Look at Banks
Bernanke, Ben S.: "Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in Propagation of the Great Depression," American Economic Review, 73(3), 1983 (J-stor)
Wicker: "A Reconsideration of the Causes of the Banking Panic of 1930," Journal of Economic History, 40, 3, 1980 (J-stor)

11/16: The Gold Standard - A Brief Recap
Eichengreen: Globalizing Capital Chapters 1-3 (distributed in class)
Kenwood and Lougheed: The Growth of the International Economy, 1820-2000 Chapter 7 (distributed in class)

Draft of course paper due November 16!

WEEK 11
11/21: Lender of Last Resort
Kindleberger: Manias, Panics and Crashes Chapter 10: The Lender of Last Resort (distributed in class)
Kindleberger: Manias, Panics and Crashes Chapter 11: The International Lender of Last Resort (distributed in class)

11/23: No Class - Thanksgiving!

WEEK 12
11/28: QUIZ II

11/30: Student Presentations

WEEK 13
12/5: Student Presentations

12/7: Student Presentations