HITELVISZONYOK MAGYARORSZÁGON A KÉSEI RENDISÉG IDEJÉN, 1700-1848.

Why did the rulers of the Habsburg Monarchy take no major loans in Hungary to finance their military expenditure? Should the reason be looked for in the absence of considerable capital there, or rather in the fact that those in possession of enough capital to invest chose to favour private creditors? Previous research has proved that the latter were predominantly great landowners, and the loans went to other great landowners. It seems that in the eighteenth century it was those with capital who searched for safe possibilities to invest their assets, as a kind of savings bank, instead of debtors knocking on the doors of creditors for loans. A key question of Hungarian economic history is how and why this situation turned into its opposite, the scarcity of credit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]