Giuseppe De Luca

Massimo Florio

Youssef Cassis

Although funding infrastructure has always been a challenging issue in any country and at any time, the topic is still largely unexplored. A European history of infrastructure financing over the long term does not yet exist, and the purpose of this book is to partially fill that gap. It explores the diverse historical paths pursued in order to solve the problem of infrastructure finance in various European countries, drawing upon the findings of an international and interdisciplinary research project. Economic historians, economists, and engineers grouped together to investigate case studies showing paradigmatic examples and to unravel their specificities across the Old Continent by combining evidence from the literature and untapped sources. The volume is structured into four sections; after an introductory chapter by the editors, the first section offers 'horizontal' contributions that encompass the entire history of European infrastructure finance. The other three sections deal with one single sector each, namely water, transport, and telecommunications. The recipients of this investigation are not only economic historians but also all those who deal with infrastructure planning, such as policymakers, economists, and engineers, who have to disentangle complex problems relating to financing issues. They all can draw from these chapters' original insights and interactions between theory and policy issues. The book shows that one single pattern fitting all does not exist in infrastructure financing, and it invites us to consider history as a research laboratory in which to understand why the economic and financial dogmas of our times are challenged by past experience.--

Insights Into the History of Water, Transport, and Telecommunications

Infrastructure Finance in Europe

Eric Bussière

"This is a comparison between London and Paris as international financial centres since the late nineteenth century. The chapters include both archive-based and synthetic surveys. It also gives insights into: the political economy of Britain and France in the twentieth century, and the history of international financial centres"--Provided by publisher.

London and Paris as International Financial Centres in the Twentieth Century

Catherine R. Schenk

How do people remember financial crisis? Do these memories affect how policy-makers and the public respond to crises, or is the past used in different ways by different actors? This volume examines a range of cases of financial crisis where either the past has been remembered, forgotten, used, or dismissed to try to begin to answer these questions.

Remembering and Learning from Financial Crises

Giuseppe Telesca

What role have the financial elites in European societies and markets played over time? What was their contribution to the recent financial collapse, and how does this compare to previous crises? How have financial elites adjusted to, or influenced, the evolution of the financial system's regulatory framework over time? Financial Elites and European Banking: Historical Perspectives is a collection of essays dedicated to the European financial elites and the current debate on the role of experts within society. The ambiguities of the globalized economy over the last thirty years, epitomized by growing levels of inequality, have generated a feeling of distrust towards experts. Financial elites have become one of the most scrutinized targets of negative public opinion, triggered by the financial crisis, the high compensations enjoyed both before and after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the obscure nature of their activity. Financial Elites in European Banking presents historical comparisons and country and cross-country case studies on financial elites' adaption and contribution to the transformation of regulatory and cultural context in the wake of a crisis.

Youssef Cassis

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