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We approach the issue of the economic effects of democracy by examining which expectations investors held about the effect of democratization in the Kingdom of Saxony in 1896 and 1909. We do this by linking their investment behavior on the Berlin Stock Exchange to political events in Saxony. Here the electoral law was changed twice: In 1896 a very restrictive franchise was introduced, which was abolished in 1909 and replaced by a more democratic electoral law. Our study reveals that the Berlin Stock Exchange reacted to political changes and elections in Saxony. This is an important finding since historical research has claimed that the increased democratization in the German Kaiserreich measured in a larger participation of the population was not accompanied by a larger political influence of the parliaments. Furthermore we can show that for capital owners the possible negative effects seemed to outweigh possible positive effects of democratization. This is the first time that it has been possible to provide quantitative evidence for such antidemocratic sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A response is presented to an article written by professor Caroline Fohlin on the history of initial public offerings (IPOs) and seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) from the Berlin, Germany Stock Exchange between 1882 and 1892. The author argues that German underwriters shared their profits with investment issuers. He discusses the relationship between offering prices and par values and provides examples of underwriters' contracts for the German companies Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG, Anglo-Continentale-Guanowerke AG Hamburg, and Sürther Maschinenfabrik AG.

We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing extremists in elections in the 1920s and 1930s. We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy. What mattered was not simply growth at the time of the election, but cumulative growth performance. The impact was greatest in countries with relatively short histories of democracy, with electoral systems that created low hurdles to parliamentary representation, and which had been on the losing side in World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the pattern of land rents and agricultural productivity across nineteenth-century Prussia to gain new insights on the causes of the “Little Divergence” between European regions. We argue that agriculture reacted to urban and industrial development rather than shaping it. In the spirit of Johann von Thünen and Ernst Engel, we develop a theoretical model to test how access to urban demand affected agricultural development. We show that the effect of urban demand is causal and that it is in line with recent findings on a limited degree of interregional market integration in nineteenth-century Prussia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The “less-developed” interior of early modern Europe, especially the rural economy, is often regarded as financially comatose. This article investigates this view using a rich data set of marriage and death inventories for seventeenth-century Germany. It first analyzes the characteristics of debts, examining borrowing purposes, familial links, communal ties, and documentary instruments. It then explores how borrowing varied with gender, age, marital status, occupation, date, and asset portfolio. It finds that ordinary people, even in a “less-developed” economy in rural central Europe, sought to invest profitably, smooth consumption, bridge low liquidity, and hold savings in financial form. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Occupation charges paid by France to Nazi Germany represent one of the largest international transfers and contributed significantly to the German war effort. We employ a neoclassical growth mode! that incorporates essential features of the occupied economy to assess the welfare costs of the policies that managed the payments to Germany. Our lower bound estimates show that occupation payments required a severe cut in consumption, A draft of labor to Germany and a reduction of real wages added to this burden. Management of the accumulated domestic debt required large budget surpluses; but post-Liberation inflation slashed the real debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a recent interpretation of the low level of investment in Germany during the interwar period of 1925-1930. Earlier attributions of the slow expansion of capital stock; Use of the cointegration model to test the attributions; Indications from the counterfactual simulations.

Presents a dissertation which examined the economic sources of and the government solutions to housing and sanitation in Germany from 1870 to 1910. Overview of the spread of cholera disease around the world and its impact on urban environment; Housing problems which dominated Eastern Europe during the period; Role of social classes on the housing systems and sanitation awareness among the German residents.