Newnham College
University of Cambridge
Questioning ‘credible commitment’: rethinking the Glorious Revolution and the rise of financial capitalism
20-23rd March 2010
Conference Programme
20th March
Registration: 2.00 – 5.00 pm
Plenary lecture 7.30 – 8.30 pm
Patrick O’Brien, LSE and Oxford
'An Architectural Blueprint for the Fiscal History of an Exceptional Fiscal State: Britain and its European Rivals from 1642 to 1815'
Drinks reception 8.30 – 9.30
21st March
Registration and coffee: 8.30 - 9.30
Session 1: 9.30-11.00
Property rights
Chair: Nuala Zahedieh
Sean Moore, University of New Hampshire
'John Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel and the problem of contract: the stopping of the Exchequer and the memory of non-credible commitment'
> Abstract
Julia Rudolph, University of Pennsylvania
'Jurisdictional Controversy and the Credibility of Common Law: Macclesfield's Impeachment in Context'.
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Dror Goldberg, Bar Ilan University
'Property rights: the rise and fall of America’s first bank'
> Abstract
> Paper
Coffee: 11.00-11.30
Session 2: 11.30-1.00
Money and markets
Chair: Angela Redish
Steve Quinn, Texas Christian University
'The Rise and Decline of the Amsterdam Bank Guilder as a Credible Reserve Currency'
> Abstract
Farley Grubb, University of Delaware
'The failure of the continental dollar: a chaos of congressional commitments, 1775-1797'
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Nathan Sussman and Yishay Yafeh, The Hebrew University
'Bloodshed or reforms: the historical determinants of sovereign bond spreads'
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> Paper
Lunch 1.00-2.15
Session 3: 2.15 – 3.45
Unwilling investors?
Chair: Christiaan van Bochove
D’Maris Coffman, University of Cambridge
'Towards the Payment of the Debts of the Commonwealth': Transparency, Accountability, and 'Publike Faith' under the Long Parliament.'
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Anne Laurence, Open University
'Were Tory Hoare’s bank customers averse to government debt?'
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Aaron Graham, New College, Oxford
'The bankers, the paymaster and the unwilling investor: British overseas military remittance, 1705-1714'
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3.45 – 4.45 Open meeting: future research agendas
5.00 – 6.30 European State Finance Database relaunch, followed by reception.
Support for this project was provided by Winton Capital Management and the Economic History Society.
22nd March
Session 4: 9.00-10.00
Lobbying and interest groups
Chair: Laura Stewart
Anne L. Murphy, University of Hertfordshire
'Demanding ‘credible commitment’: public responses to the failures of the early financial revolution'
> Abstract
Will Pettigrew, University of Kent
'Interest Groups and Economic Growth in England, 1660 – 1715'
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Session 5: 10.00-11.00
Malfeasance and malfeasants
Chair: Simon Healy
Ann Carlos, University of Colorado
'Malfeasance to Misfortune: Credible Commitment and the Certificate of Discharge'
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Matthew Pagett, University of Pennsylvania
'Enhancing commitment quietly: discredited financiers in literature under Louis XIV'
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Coffee: 11.00-11.30
Session 6: 11.30-1.00
Perceptions of trust
Chair: David Ormrod
William Ashworth, University of Liverpool
'Manufacturing Trust: Public Credit and the Excise in Eighteenth Century Britain'
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Koji Yamamoto, Kings College, London
'The rise of public subscriptions in later seventeenth-century England'
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Christiaan van Bochove, Utrecht University
'Parliamentary control or financial techniques? Dutch investments in England and Denmark-Norway during the eighteenth century'
> Abstract
Lunch 1.00-2.00
Session 7: 2.00 – 4.30
European perspectives
Chair: Peter Spufford
Republics: 2.00-3.00
Luciano Pezzolo, University Ca’ Foscari of Venice
'Political powers and institutional commitments: government debts in Italy 1350-1700'
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Oscar Gelderblom and Joost Jonker, Utrecht University
'One system, seventeen outcomes? The pattern of public finance in the Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands, 1550-1795'
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> Paper
Coffee: 3.00-3.30
Absolutists: 3.30-4.30
Regina Grafe, Northwestern University
'A Stakeholder Empire: the political economy of Spanish imperial rule'
> Abstract
Michael Kwass, University of Georgia
'Court Capitalism, Illicit Markets, and Political Legitimacy in Eighteenth-Century France: The Salt and Tobacco Monopolies'
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Round table discussion: 4.30-5.30
Debt and default: current perspectives
Participants: Larry Neal, James Macdonald, Angela Redish, Rui Esteves
Conference dinner: 7.30
23rd March
Session 8: 9.00 – 10.30
Corporations and the state
Chair: Steve Quinn
Ron Harris, Tel Aviv University
'Corporate Charters and Credible Commitments before the Glorious Revolution'
> Abstract
Nuala Zahedieh, University of Edinburgh
'The Royal African Company and the Glorious Revolution'
> Abstract
Santhi Hejeebu, Cornell College
'Mixed blessings: consequences of state borrowing on the East India Company'
> Abstract
Coffee: 10.30-11.00
Session 9: 11.00-12.00
1710: a new turning point?
Chair: Anne Murphy
James Macdonald, independent scholar
'The Importance of Not Defaulting: The Significance of the Election of 1710'
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Carl Wennerlind, Barnard College
'The Politics of Opinion: The Public Sphere and the Financial Crisis of 1710'
> Abstract
Plenary lecture 12.00 -1.00
Larry Neal, LSE
Lunch 1.00 – 2.30
