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SUMMARY:Re-thinking the origins of the British public debt\, 1643-1742 - D
 r D'Maris Coffman\, Newnham College and Centre for Financial History
DTSTART:20120528T160000Z
DTEND:20120528T180000Z
UID:TALK38002@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:D'Maris Coffman
DESCRIPTION:In the midst of the worst sovereign debt crisis since the 1930
 s\, there remains a great deal of confusion about the origins of ‘credib
 le commitment’ in Britain. One of the chief conclusions that North & Wei
 ngast’s drew from their narrative of the development of ‘credible comm
 itment’ was their insistence that ‘these institutional innovations did
  not arise naturally. Rather they were forced\, often violently\, upon the
  Crown’ (p. 828).  In fact\, for many outside the narrow confines of fin
 ancial history\, the ‘Financial Revolution’ remains to many essentiall
 y a Dutch import.\nThis account ignores the institutional practices (and t
 he ideological justifications for them) that governed the course of public
  borrowing under the Long Parliament and Commonwealth. The hallmarks of 
 ‘credible commitment’ – respect for private property rights\, transp
 arency and accountability in public finance\, monitoring by creditors (in 
 part through a burgeoning print culture) – were all characteristic of pr
 imary and secondary markets for excise-backed paper in the 1640s. Yet when
  faced with a ‘debt crisis’ in 1647/48\, the Commonwealth regime was u
 nable to re-structure the public debt\, and\, instead\, was forced to disp
 ose of capital assets when real interest rates on government paper climbed
  to nearly twenty-five percent.  This paper argues that it was rather publ
 ic perception’s of the permanence and stability of the Williamite regime
 \, unwillingness on the part of the subjects to revisit civil strife\, and
 \, perhaps most importantly\, broad acceptance of the fiscal innovations (
 especially excise taxation)\, which collateralised the state’s financial
  obligations\, that made the development of robust public capital markets 
 possible. Yet the process was contingent\, and remained incomplete into th
 e 1740s.\n
LOCATION:Lucia Windsor Room\, Newnham College
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