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ABOUT THE CENTER
RESEARCH AT THE ICF
NEWS
CALENDAR & RESOURCES
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A GUIDE TO THE EXHIBIT
William Goetzmann
Director, ICF
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K. Geert Rouwenhorst
Deputy Director, ICF
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Micah Hemani
Research Assistant, ICF
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Decorating the walls of the International Center for Finance you will find an exhibit
of financial securities selected from the ICF collection. The collection
traces financial innovations over a two hundred year period -- from
a rare share certificate issued by the Keijserlijcke Indishe Compagnie
of Antwerp that was formed in 1723 to a one million Deutchmark floating-rate
note issue by the Weimar Republic in the hyperinflation era of 1922
of which countless thousands were produced. The goal of the collection
is to identify securities that represent important innovations in financial
markets. Many of the pieces in the exhibit represent a new method of
raising capital, or a special event or period in capital market history.
While interesting historically, the stories they tell are never the
less pertinent to the global markets of today. Each piece in the collection
is, in effect, a contract between a company or country and an investor.
The design of these contracts was in some cases remarkably creative
and some of the securities had a lasting impact -- not only on world
finance, but also on global politics.
The financial markets in the 19th century and early part of the 20th
looked uncannily like the global markets of today. Stocks and bonds
issued in London, Paris, New York, St. Petersburg and Tokyo financed
mines in Africa, cattle ranches in Montana, oil exploration in Russia,
railroad construction in South America, China and the Middle East and
canals linking the world's major oceans. The period before 1930 saw
the integration of the world capital markets into an unprecedented inter-connected
system. Only in the last 20 years have the world capital markets regained
the breadth and liquidity enjoyed in the late colonial era. What happened
in the middle part of the 20th century? Wars, Revolutions
and the Great Depression bankrupted companies, brought down governments
(and their lenders) and eliminated capitalism and free markets in many
places. Are such processes cyclical or have we resumed progress towards
a well-integrated global economy after a tumultuous hiatus?
Remarkably, many of the stock and bond certificates from the high point of global capitalism
still survive. In the exhibition that follows, we show some of the share
and bond certificates that global investors held. Most traded on the
Paris and London exchanges, as well as locally. Thinking of investing
in Russia, China or Africa? These glorious failures may make you change
your mind.
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