Brazil has one of the world's fastest growing economies and a fascinating history underpinning its evolution. This book presents an analysis of the state's role in monetary policy, from the latter days of Portuguese rule, to the present day. Based on a variety of unknown archival sources, this study offers an alternative explanation for the rise and fall of Brazilian currencies.

Monetary statecraft is a theory that accounts for the open ended, autonomous character of politics, the complex, recursive phases of public policy, and political development in the traditional sense of...

In life, Benjamin Franklin sought to manage debt, organize credit, build capital and promote virtue. After death, he continued this work by leaving a codicil to his last will and testament, bequeathing 2,000 to Boston and Philadelphia. This study examines Franklin's codicil and the financial history of America over the 200 years since his death.

This book gives a comprehensive account of the history and underlying economics of the modern art market in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.

As a businessman, financier, diplomat, minister, and first Managing Director of the IMF, Camille Gutt (1884-1971) was involved in all the important financial negotiations between the 1920s and the 1950s. Using Gutt's personal archives as his starting point, Crombois examines the rise and fall of financial diplomacy as a largely private enterprise.

This study is the first in a decade to provide an overview of banking in Brazil. It is argued that the big three federal banks have long provided essential policy alternatives and, since the liberalization of the industry in the 1990s, have realized competitive advantages over private and foreign banks.

Despite their economic and social importance, there are relatively few book-length studies of national insurance industries. This collection of nine essays by a group of international experts redresses this balance; providing an extensive geographical and thematic spread, linked via an extensive introduction.

Fiscal relations between states and cities in early modern Europe is a major concern for economic and financial historians. This collection of eleven essays is based on new research using documentary evidence from local and national archives from across Europe.

The papers in this edited volume discuss key elements of monetarism, including coin denominations, the role of bullion and case studies of substitute moneys.

Focusing on Fritz Machlup, Connell presents the story of the Bellagio Group and its contribution to modern finance. Initiated by Machlup the Bellagio Group was made up of thirty-two non-government academic economists. During the years between 1964 and 1977 the Group met eighteen times and made a series of recommendations for policymakers.

Filling a significant gap in the historiography, the essays in this volume show that debt slavery has played a crucial role in the economic history of numerous societies which continues even today.