Questioning Credible Commitment: Perspectives on the Rise of Financial Capitalism

Financial capitalism emerged in a recognisably modern form in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Great Britain. Following the seminal work of Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast (1989), many scholars have concluded that the 'credible commitment' that was provided by parliamentary backing of government as a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 provided the key institutional underpinning on which modern public finances depend. In this book, a specially commissioned group of historians and economists examine and challenge the North and Weingast thesis to show that multiple commitment mechanisms were necessary to convince public creditors that sovereign debt constituted a relatively accessible, safe and liquid investment vehicle. Questioning Credible Commitment provides academics and practitioners with a broader understanding of the origins of financial capitalism, and, with its focus on theoretical and policy frameworks, shows the significance of the debate to current macroeconomic policy making.

D'Maris Coffman is the Mary Bateson Research Fellow at Newnham College, Director of the Centre for Financial History and Affiliated Lecturer in the History Faculty, University of Cambridge.

Adrian Leonard is a Bateman Scholar at Trinity Hall and an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Financial History, Newnham College, University of Cambridge.

Larry Neal is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.