Finance Masters: A Brief History Of International Financial Centers In The Last Millennium

by Olivier Coispeau

Overview

One thousand years ago, a handful of dynamic medieval city states developed trade at the frontier of capitalism. Their unique commercial ambition led to the emergence of finance capitals of international significance: Finance Masters. From the 11th century onward, international financial hubs, led by astute and bold merchant bankers and visionary leaders, inspired the numerous innovations that triggered economic revolutions in the last millennium and laid the ground for modern finance. This book explores not only classic financial centers, but also offshore financial centers and gambling centers to connect them to contemporary finance, and it also delves into the unique function of leading financial hubs to execute financial transactions over a wide geographical domain and transform the world economy.The 2008-2009 Great Recession showed that working on fundamental issues such as market structure, pricing mechanism, and games was indeed necessary but probably still insufficient to create the antibodies needed to mitigate systemic risk and prevent the irrational exuberance capable of triggering devastating economic crash. In the continuation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments written by Adam Smith in 1759, seventeen years before his Wealth of Nations, it seems a deeper historical understanding of the key success factors which quietly assembled in the backyard of our market economy can be a useful lifeline. This book aims to explain the widening gulf that emerged over time between economics, regulatory and ethical considerations necessary to a smoother functioning of markets.Finance Masters is also a book about the extraordinary men who led the evolution of modern finance with the innovations that changed the course of economic history. This book tries to capture the salient factors behind the geography of finance hubs from the early fairs in medieval England and Venice to Wall Street in contemporary New York. The development and the legacy of those 'Finance Masters' deserve more attention to reflect upon the evolution of incumbent players and better understand their possible future. This book a must read for economics and finance students and young finance professionals, who seek a broader and better understanding of the origins of modern economics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789813108820
Publisher:	World Scientific Publishing Company, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/01/2016
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

About the Author v

Acknowledgement vii

Foreword xi

Introduction xv

Chapter 1 From the Annual Fairs of the 11th Century to Early International Banking 1

The Merry Fair of St Giles as An Early Model of a Multinational Trading Centre 2

The Champagne Fairs, the Leading Trading Hub in Europe 10

The Ascent of Lombard Merchant Bankers 26

The Banking Disintegration of the Mid-14th Century 37

Chapter 2 The Domination of the Mediterranean Region 47

Lombard Finance and the Turbulent Medici Era 47

The Rise and Apogee of Venice, the Lagoon City 57

Opportunites Beyond the Known World 68

Landing in another World 76

Chapter 3 The Shift Towards the North of Europe in the 16th century 83

The Ascent of the Flanders, with a Little Help from Columbus 83

The Revenge of "La Superba", the Turbulent Italian City-State 93

The Orange Revolution: The Opportunistic Rise of Amsterdam 103

Secondary Places, including the Much Specific Case of France 117

Chapter 4 The Transatlantic New Financial Order in the 18th Century 133

The Steady Emergence of London as Europe's Finance Centrepoint 133

The Takeover of the First Place by New York 148

The Need of an Asian World Class Financial Centre, after the Second World War 168

Medieval Japan: A Secluded Archipelago Split in Internal Feuds 169

Vertical and Horizontal Challenge: New Geographies and New Industries 180

Chapters Pools, Bots and Trolls 201

The Importance of Being Networked 201

The Derivative Revolution 213

Welcome to the Machine 221

Barbarians at the Gat.Exe 239

Chapter 6 Uninvited Guest to the Party 245

Mirror, Mirror or the Tyranny of Index Rating 245

Gambling "Financial Centres": Place Your Bets… 254

OFCs Revisited 268

Trustworthiness from the Early Days of Finance to the 21st Century 278

Conclusion 295

Maps 303

Graphs 309

Acronyms 313

Bibliography 315

Further Reading 321

Other References 332

Index 335