Seminars

Business and Financial History Seminar

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Upcoming events

• Wednesday 15 May 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  RIEDER Kilian (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, CEPR & SUERF) : *

• Wednesday 22 May 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  FABRE Antoine : La fabrique managériale de l’Anthropocène, Le rôle du prix de revient des plantations d’hévéa dans la déforestation en Indochine au début du XXe siècle

  Labardin P., Loizeau J., Boyer C.

• Wednesday 12 June 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  DEMILLY DAVID (CRED (Paris Panthéon Assas) & Banque de France) : *

• Wednesday 26 June 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  COULOUMIES Quentin Belot (IESEG) : Piercing the holding veil to enter family capital. inancialization dynamics and structures pf Peugeot capital accumulation, 1965-2019

Archives

• Wednesday 3 April 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  AUBERT Pablo (EHESS) : La Commission des opérations de Bourse?: à la recherche d’une indépendance pragmatique

  STOJANOVIC Iouri (EHESS)

  Aubert Pablo, Iouri Stojanovic

  Abstract

  Ce travail présente trois résultats. Il permet tout d’abord de mettre en lumière les tensions générées par la «?division du travail étatique?» (Bezes et Le Lidec 2016) dans les années 1970-1980 entre les agences dites «?indépendantes?» et les administrations historiques. Le gouvernement, soucieux de mener à bien ses divers objectifs, s’écartèle entre une autorité d’une nouvelle forme et un Trésor conservateur qui se trouve peu à peu dépossédé de ses missions. Dans un second temps, il permet de comprendre certains des mécanismes par lesquels le Trésor parvient à maintenir — par les rapports de force qu’il impose — sa position sur l’échiquier politique, incarné par son pouvoir hiérarchique. Pour

• Wednesday 27 March 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  GARCIA Sébastian (PSE) : The pearl of the Empire? Private capital and the "mise en valeur" of rubber in colonial French Indochina.

  Simon Bittmann and Sebastián García Cornejo

  Abstract

  This project studies colonial private capital in the rubber sector in French Indochina during the interwar. We extend the discussion about the "profitability of Empires" in two directions: to French concessionary firms, and by focusing on the distribution of profits, and incipient success, rather than levels. Using complete plantation-level data on firms' life-cycles, returns, board members and labor composition, we test the hypothesis of an "imperialist moment" in French economic/business history, exploring two main drivers of success - the type of capital invested and the reliance on forced labor - interacting with state support during the Great Depression

• Wednesday 20 March 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  MASTIN Jean-Luc (Paris 8 Vincennes Saint Denis) : Les mutations du système de contrôle bancaire français dans les années 1980 (1976-1993)

• Wednesday 13 March 2024 16:00-17:30

  R2.02 (salle Rebérioux )

  BONHOURE Emilie (Kedge Business School ) : A Long-Term Perspective on Ownership: the Case of Saint-Gobain

• Wednesday 7 February 2024 16:00-17:30

  The session was canceled.

  R2.20

  FABRE Antoine : Labardin P., Loizeau J., Fabre A., Boyer C. (2022), La fabrique managériale de l’Anthropocène, Le rôle du prix de revient des plantations d’hévéa dans la déforestation en Indochine au début du XXe siècle, Conférence « Anthropocene et management, Repe

• Wednesday 24 January 2024 16:00-17:30

  R1.10

  ABE DE Jong (University of Groningen) : Why are corporations terminated?

  Christopher L. Colvin,Philip T. Fliers,Florian Madertoner

  Abstract

  We identify all 196 Dutch exchange-listed corporations that halted their operations and ceased to exist between 1903 and 1996. We then explain these terminations using unique hand-collected accounting and governance data and novel regression techniques that allow us to conduct long-run comparative analysis. Dutch bankruptcy laws remained remarkably stable during this period. The main termination method used was shareholder-induced voluntary liquidation until WWII, and creditor-instigated bankruptcy thereafter. We argue this shift was a consequence of a change in the societal purpose of the corporation: the results of our binomial regression analysis is consistent with the idea that a stakeholder-focused paradigm replaced the liberal shareholder-centric paradigm among the Netherlands’ business elites in the decades following WWII. Our results demonstrate how a change in corporate purpose has profound consequences, even when legal institutions remain unchanged.

• Wednesday 13 December 2023 16:00-17:30

  R2.01

  F.SIMIAND ATELIER ((PSE et EHESS)) : Les empires français dans leurs dimensions économiques (18e-20e siècle)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 22 November 2023 16:00-17:30

  R2.20

  LIEBALD Marius (Goethe University in Frankfurt) : Insights on Current Socio-Economic Issues using Events from the German Empire and the Weimar Republic: Political Radicalization, Free Money, and Relationship Banking

• Wednesday 11 October 2023 16:00-17:00

  R1-16

  BITTMANN Simon : Financing Exploitation. Colonial Capitalism and the Indochina Rubber (1916-1939)

• Wednesday 14 June 2023 16:00-17:00

  R1-14

  GONZÁLEZ PALOMARES David (Université de Oviedo) : La France et les charbonnages des Asturies, (1838-1941), Capital, gestion et transfert de technologie

  Abstract

  Cette thèse de doctorat vise à connaître et analyser l'influence française dans les mines de houille des Asturies (Nord de l’Espagne) sous trois angles différents. En premier lieu, une étude d'histoire économique sur le capital français et les entreprises qui vont dans les bassins miniers asturiens pour développer leur activité. De 1838 à 1941, 70 entreprises françaises ont travaillé dans le secteur, couvrant 71% des investissements étrangers dans la région. Dans un deuxième temps, la gestion du travail et du capital humain est examinée sous un angle technique et social. L'objectif est de connaître, d'une part, le nombre et les particularités des techniciens et ingénieurs français venus travailler dans les Asturies, tandis que, d'autre part, les industriels, actionnaires et entrepreneurs français qui observent ce secteur avec espoir économique. Enfin, et totalement lié aux deux parties précédents, se trouve la recherche sur les techniques et les matériaux exportés de France vers les Asturies, le plus souvent par ces entreprises ou des ingénieurs français.

• Wednesday 7 June 2023 16:00-17:00

  R1-14

  MITCHENER Kris ((Leavey School of Business)) : Dynamic Secessions: Evidence from the U.S. Civil War

  Jean Lacroix; Kris James Mitchener; Kim Oosterlinck

  Abstract

  Secessions occur only if a viable outside option exists. We illustrate how the definition of this breakaway state depends endogenously on the decisions of individual regions to secede and the responses of other regions to those actions. We then show how subsovereign bond data can be used to indirectly capture relevant dimensions of dynamic secessions. Using the canonical case of the secession of southern U.S. states in the 1860s and novel, hand-collected weekly state bond data from the NYSE, we first show that financial markets priced “secession risk” after the election of President Lincoln in the fall of 1860 – when Southern states’ yields diverged and long before war broke out between the Confederacy and the Union. Second, yields on the bonds of seceding states decreased as the number of states seceding increased, suggesting economies of scale when seceding. Third, evidence of within-state heterogeneity in preferences increased a state’s secession risk, given such differences made joining the breakaway state more challenging and could even generate within-state secession.

• Wednesday 24 May 2023 16:00-17:00

  R1-14

  HOŠMAN Mirek Tobiáš (Université Paris Cité) : The Most Important Research Project”: The World Bank and the Problem of Stabilizing International Commodity Prices in the 1960s

  Abstract

  By the early 1960s, the commodity problem of international development became a well-known and eagerly debated issue. Countries of the Global South depended on exports of a limited range of primary commodities to earn foreign exchange revenues. These commodities often suffered from sluggish global demand growth and highly volatile prices. Exchange earnings of developing countries with export portfolios heavily concentrated in only a few of such commodities thus rose slowly and were highly unstable, which created pressures on the countries’ balance of payments. Counting in the often limited foreign exchange reserves, a commodity price fluctuation posed a significant challenge (and sometimes an outright disaster) for the financial position and investment plans of Global South countries. The issue was not a new one. It was repeatedly debated at meetings of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This paper tells the story of two large-scale studies prepared in the 1960s on the commodity prices stabilization, both of them having substantial consequences on global attempts to mitigate the issue. The first study was prepared by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund with the aim of examining the extent of the commodity issue, analyzing the behavior and structural changes of specific commodity markets, and discussing possible mechanisms for stabilizing international commodity prices, such as individual commodity agreements, export and import quotas, buffer stocks, or even political organization of the whole commodity trade. The second study was prepared by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Coffee Organization (ICO) to specifically look into coffee – the second most internationally traded commodity after petroleum. Relying on previously untapped archival documents, this paper explores the evolving understanding of commodity markets and of different mechanisms for stabilizing commodity prices at the World Bank in the 1960s. It reconstructs debates among international organizations on regulating the global economy and demonstrates the relationship between economic research conducted by international organizations and its connection to global policy making processes

• Wednesday 12 April 2023 16:00-17:30

  BERTILORENZI Marco : *

• Wednesday 12 April 2023 16:00-17:30

  R1-14 Campus Jourdan

  BERTILORENZI Marco : French mining capitalism abroad. The international mobility of French civil mining engineers, 1880-1980".

• Wednesday 29 March 2023 16:00-17:30

  R1-14 Campus Jourdan

  RUTHERFORD Janette (The Open University) : The forgotten activists: UK and USA shareholder committees of investigation, 1890-1940

• Wednesday 22 February 2023 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  VAN MENXCEL Kevin : The Cross-Section of Corporate Bond Returns: Evidence from an Elusive Past

• Wednesday 1 February 2023 16:00-17:30

  Via ZOOM

  MARTIN Jamie : The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance – Harvard University Press .14 juin 2022

• Wednesday 25 January 2023 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  VIALLET - THEVENIN Scott : Le réseau des grandes entreprises coloniales françaises de 1885 à 1939

• Wednesday 30 November 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan

  VELDE François : Debt restructuring in Britain in the early 18th c., winners and losers

• Wednesday 19 October 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.13 Campus Jourdan

  ROBERTSON Charlotte : Integral Outside: The Marseille Coulisse, the Electric Telegraph, and the Politics of Pricing in Second Empire France

• Wednesday 12 October 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  CADOREL Jean-Laurent : The french historical yield curve since 1870

• Wednesday 28 September 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  HANNAH Leslie : Large quoted manufacturing employers circa 1880: why the UK and France led the US in the scale and scope of enterprise and the divorce of ownership from control

• Wednesday 8 June 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  JABKO Nicolas : The ECB’s new normal and the changing politics of money after 2007 - La nouvelle normalité de la Banque Centrale Européenne

  Abstract

  This chapter challenges a widespread view that the European Union of the 2010s stuck to, and later reluctantly abandoned, a neoliberal “Frankfurt consensus” of price stability and fiscal restraint pushed by the European Central Bank. As I argue, the ECB did political work to establish what I call a new normal, ultimately squeezing crisis-time unconventional actions into its policy repertoire. The ECB is at the origin of EU fiscal retrenchment, but then it lost control of its creature. Increasingly, ECB leaders questioned and even resisted the Frankenstein-like politics of austerity. They alienated doctrinaire fiscal conservatives early on, including those on the ECB Governing Council. In adopting unconventional policies of unprecedented monetary expansion, and later in tacitly supporting greater fiscal accommodation, the ECB evolved into a rather agile central bank. This decade-long evolution helps to understand why, in response to the pandemic, the ECB quickly stepped up its asset purchases and became an advocate for an ambitious fiscal expansion at the EU level. Far from utilizing the ECB’s independence to singlemindedly pursue neoliberal policies, ECB leaders pushed back against rigid conservative attitudes among central banks, eurozone governments, and segments of the public.

• Wednesday 18 May 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  CONDORELLI Stefano (Université de Berne) : Price momentum and analysis of sentiment through news (using Natural Language Processing): a new approach to compare booms and crashes in asset markets across centuries (18th-21st century)

• Wednesday 20 April 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  LYONS Ronan (Trinity College Dublin) : US housing prices over the long-run

• Wednesday 30 March 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  EFFOSSE Sabine (Université Paris Nanterre) : The banking emancipation of married women in 20th Century France

• Wednesday 23 March 2022 14:30-16:00

  Salle R2.21, Campus Jourdan

  HOŠMAN Mirek Tobiáš (Université Paris Cité) : No Longer a Bank: The Economists’ Takeover at the World Bank

• Wednesday 16 March 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  MAJERUS Benoît (Université du Luxembourg) : Holdings financières au Luxembourg

• Wednesday 9 March 2022 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  PITTELOUP Sabine (Université de Genève) : Avoir foi en la libre entreprise: Nestlé, ses actionnaires religieux et la politisation de l'Eglise (1970-1990)

• Wednesday 16 February 2022 14:00-15:30

  On line

  SHIZUME Masato (Waseda University) : Financial development in Japan during the pre-modern period (17-19C)

  Abstract

  The feudal lords of the Edo Period (1603-1867) were required by law to rotate back and forth between Edo and their home territories every two years, and their families were required to live in Edo permanently. The lords collected taxes mainly in the form of rice and other agricultural commodities and sold substantial portions of those commodities to acquire cash to fund their households and activities in Edo and travels between Edo and home. Merchants in domain territories and Osaka were engaged in trade and finance for and with the domains as well as of their own. Following the opening of the treaty ports in 1859 and Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan instituted a series of drastic reforms. Among other entities, national banks structured as joint stock companies according to the US model played a key role in the modernization of the country by providing the society with liquidity and integrating the national financial markets. Empirical evidence suggests that commoners who engaged in commercial activities in the late Edo to the early Meiji Period played a key role in Japan’s modernization.

• Wednesday 1 December 2021 16:00-17:30

  Séminaire annulé

  DE VICQ Amaury (PSE) : Caught Between Outreach and Sustainability: The Rise and Decline of Dutch Credit Unions

• Wednesday 17 November 2021 16:00-17:30

  Salle R2.21, Campus Jourdan

  GALBIATI Roberto : J'Accuse ! Antisemitism and Financial Markets in the Time of The Dreyfus Affair

• Wednesday 3 November 2021 16:00-17:30

  Salle R2-21, Campus Jourdan

  MACHIELSEN Bas (Utrecht University) : Political Rents under a Changing Electoral System

• Wednesday 6 October 2021 16:00-17:30

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan

  ASTORE Marianna (PSE) : The industrial intervention of the Bank of Italy (1893-1936). Another Gerschenkronian factor in the Italian economic development?

• Wednesday 16 June 2021 17:00-18:30

  FLIERS Philip (Queen s University in Belfast) : Was Marshall Right? Managerial Failure and Corporate Ownership in Edwardian Britain

  with Michael Aldous et John Turner.

• Wednesday 2 June 2021 17:00-18:30

  LABARDIN Pierre (Univ. Paris Dauphine - PSL) : La production et l’usage du prix de revient des entreprises coloniales françaises : Le cas du caoutchouc en A.E.F (1899-1945)

  FABRE ANTOINE (Univ. Paris Dauphine - PSL)

• Wednesday 19 May 2021 17:00-18:30

  GRANDI Elisa (PSE) : Banks, networks and crisis before WWI

  HEKIMIAN Raphaël (ISG)

  RIVA Angelo (European Business School and PSE)

• Wednesday 5 May 2021 17:00-18:30

  DE VICQ Amaury (PSE) : Great Depression and flight-to-safety in the Netherlands

  Rubens Peeters

• Wednesday 24 March 2021 16:00-17:30

  PHILIPPE Aurélie (IDHE.S / Sorbonne IHES) : Le Comité des Houillères et ses réseaux de pouvoir : la mise en place de stratégies d'influence au service des compagnies minières (1887-1939)

• Wednesday 10 March 2021 17:00-18:30

  STEINFELD Frederic (University of Gothenburg) : De-Coding the Image of the Firm: How Balance Manipulation Changes the Perspective on Historical Company Performance

• Wednesday 17 February 2021 17:00-18:30

  via Zoom

  BONHOURE Emilie (Kedge Business School ) : An Original Solution to Agency Issues among Pre-WWI Paris-Listed Firms: the Statutory Rule of Profit Allocation

• Wednesday 10 February 2021 17:00-18:30

  via Zoom

  PEETERS Ruben (Utrecht University) : Government intervention in Dutch SME financing, 1900-1940

• Wednesday 27 January 2021 17:00-18:30

  via Zoom

  AVARO Maylis (Graduate Institute, Genève) : Zombie International Currency, the pound sterling, 1945-1971

  Abstract

  This paper provides new evidence on the decline of sterling as an international currency, focusing on its role as foreign exchange reserve asset under the Bretton Woods era. Using a unique new dataset on the composition of foreign exchange reserves of central banks, I show that the shift away from the sterling occurred earlier than conventionally supposed for the countries not belonging to the sterling area. The use of sterling has been described as freely chosen, imposed by the Bank of England or negotiated. I argue that the sterling area was a captive market as the Bank of England used capital controls, commercial threats and economic sanctions against sterling area countries to limit the divestments of their sterling assets. This management of the decline of sterling benefited mostly Britain and the City of London but represented a cost for sterling area countries and the international monetary system.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 16 December 2020 10:30-12:00

  Via Zoom

  BUELENS Frans (University of Antwerp) : The Belgian Railways: financing, investors and performances

• Wednesday 2 December 2020 17:00-18:30

  Via Zoom

  CADOREL Jean-Laurent : An international Monetary Explanation of the 1929 Crash of the New York Stock Exchange

• Wednesday 18 November 2020 17:00-18:30

  Via Zoom

  LABARDIN Pierre (Univ. Paris Dauphine - PSL) : La Réévalution des bilans des entreprises pendant l'entre-deux-guerres

• Wednesday 4 November 2020 17:00-18:30

  Via Zoom

  PASTORE Thomas : The Belle-Epoque of Portfolios? How return, risk and diversification correlated with the wealth distribution in Paris in 1912

• Wednesday 24 June 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  Histoire Financière

• Wednesday 27 May 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  COLLET Stéphanie (Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt am Main) : Histoire Financière : TBA

• Wednesday 27 May 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  Histoire Financière

• Wednesday 13 May 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  COLLET Stéphanie (Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt am Main) : Histoire Financière

• Wednesday 29 April 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ATELIER DFIH

• Wednesday 1 April 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  LABARDIN Pierre (Univ. Paris Dauphine - PSL) : Séance annulée et reportée

• Wednesday 18 March 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  SATO Hideki (Kanazawa U. ) : Séance annulée et reportée

• Wednesday 4 March 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  FLIERS Philip (Queens University of Belfast) : Corporate Taxes and Debt under the Nazi Occupation

• Wednesday 5 February 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ATELIER DFIH

• Wednesday 22 January 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  MOLTENI Marco (University of Oxford) : Financial deepening gone wrong? Italian banking crises in 1926-36: determinants of distress

• Wednesday 8 January 2020 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ATELIER DFIH

• Wednesday 18 December 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ATELIER DFIH

• Wednesday 11 December 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  FOURIE Johan (Stellenbosch University) : Firm survival during war: evidence from limited liability records and the Anglo-Boer War

• Wednesday 27 November 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ARTOLA BLANCO Miguel (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid) : Household asset returns and portfolio composition: Spain, 1900-2017

• Wednesday 20 November 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  BONHOURE Emilie (Kedge Business School ) : ATELIER DFIH : Emilie Bonhoure sur les règles de distribution des profits

• Wednesday 30 October 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  Histoire Financière

• Wednesday 16 October 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  GRANDI Elisa (PSE) : ATELIER DFIH : Elisa Grandi sur les réseaux

• Wednesday 2 October 2019 17:00-19:30

  VERDICKT Gertjan (Anvers) : Go Active or Stay Passive: Investment Trusts, Financial Innovation and Diversification in an Emerging Market

• Wednesday 2 October 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  VERDICKT Gertjan (Anvers) : Go Active or Stay Passive: Investment Trusts, Financial Innovation and Diversification in an Emerging Market”

  with Jan Annaert

• Wednesday 18 September 2019 17:00-19:00

  Salle R1.10 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ATELIER DFIH : Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur sur les dividendes

• Saturday 8 June 2019 17:00-18:15

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  Nouveau Séminaire