Credit, Risk and Reputation in Late Seventeenth-Century Colonial Trade

Author(s):  
Nuala Zahedieh
Author(s):  
Nuala Zahedieh

This essay considers the purpose and value of credit - in the sense of character esteem and regard - in the early modern economic system. Particular focus is given to the role of credit, and the nature of risk in colonial trade. The essay seeks to prove that integrity amongst merchants was essential due to the necessity of promise and trust - promises to provide and deliver goods, promises to pay, these were necessary pacts that minimised the risk of colonial trade. It also examines the way colonial merchants confined their business to small circles of correspondents rather than large trade networks. The conclusion asserts that mercantile trade system was shaped by credit, building from the evidence raised by examining trade documents concerning London and the West Indies.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly D. Dages ◽  
John W. Jones ◽  
Bailey Klinger
Keyword(s):  

1963 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jozef Cohen
Keyword(s):  

ICLEM 2010 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan He ◽  
Liwei Kang ◽  
Zhonghua Ma ◽  
Ming Li

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Mamonov

Our analysis documents that the existence of hidden “holes” in the capital of not yet failed banks - while creating intertemporal pressure on the actual level of capital - leads to changing of maturity of loans supplied rather than to contracting of their volume. Long-term loans decrease, whereas short-term loans rise - and, what is most remarkably, by approximately the same amounts. Standardly, the higher the maturity of loans the higher the credit risk and, thus, the more loan loss reserves (LLP) banks are forced to create, increasing the pressure on capital. Banks that already hide “holes” in the capital, but have not yet faced with license withdrawal, must possess strong incentives to shorten the maturity of supplied loans. On the one hand, it raises the turnovers of LLP and facilitates the flexibility of capital management; on the other hand, it allows increasing the speed of shifting of attracted deposits to loans to related parties in domestic or foreign jurisdictions. This enlarges the potential size of ex post revealed “hole” in the capital and, therefore, allows us to assume that not every loan might be viewed as a good for the economy: excessive short-term and insufficient long-term loans can produce the source for future losses.


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