Competition in the Underwriting Markets of Sovereign Debt: The Baring Crisis Revisited

Flores discusses the bargaining power of Argentina\u27s federal government relative to that of the underwriting banks. It examines how the financial intermediaries\u27 gatekeeping function eroded when faced with increased competition. Under normal circumstances, underwriters should have impeded Argentinean access to capital markets or at least hardened the terms under which Argentina could borrow

Bonds and Brands : intermediaries and reputation in sovereign debt markets 1820-1830

How does sovereign debt emerge and become sustainable? This paper provides a new answer to this unsolved puzzle. Focusing on the early 19th century, we argue that intermediaries’ market power served to overcome information asymmetries and sustained the development of sovereign debt. Relying on insights from corporate finance, we argue that capitalists turned to intermediaries’ reputations to guide their investment strategies. The outcome was a two-tier global bond market, which was sustained by hierarchical relations among intermediaries. This novel theoretical perspective is backed by new archival evidence and empirical data that have never been gathered so far

Hamlet Without The Prince of Denmark: Relationship Banking and Conditionality Lending In The London Market For Foreign Government Debt, 1815 - 1913

This paper offers a theory of conditionality lending in 19th century international capital markets. We argue that ownership of reputation signals by prestigious banks rendered them able and willing to monitor government borrowing. Monitoring was a source of rent, and it led bankers to support countries facing liquidity crises in a manner similar to modern descriptions of “relationship” lending to corporate clients by “parent” banks. Prestigious bankers’ ability to implement conditionality loans and monitor countries’ financial policies also enabled them to deal with solvency. We find that, compared with prestigious bankers, bondholders’ committees had neither the tools nor the prestige required for effectively dealing with defaulters. Hence such committees were far less important than previous research has claimed.

Human activity recognition from object interaction in domestic scenarios

This paper presents a real time approach to the recognition of human activity based on the interaction between people and objects in domestic settings, specifically in a kitchen. Regarding the procedure, it is based on capturing partial images where the activity takes place using a colour camera, and processing the images to recognize the present objects and their location. For object description and recognition, a histogram on rg chromaticity space has been selected. The interaction with the objects is classified into four types of possible actions; (unchanged, add, remove or move). Activities are defined as recipes, where objects play the role of ingredients, tools or substitutes. Sensed objects and actions are then used to analyze in real time the probability of the human activity performed at a particular moment in a continuous activity sequence.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Is It Utility or Production of Value? Labor and Relations of Production in a Colonial "Estancia" of the Río de la Plata, from the case of Los Portugueses (1802-1809)

Las estancias coloniales fueron recientemente presentadas como estancias racionalmente orientadas al mercado. De ese modo, estimaron algunas tasas de utilidad y ganancia, acorde al orden de los factores, sobre todo, el de la inversión. En este trabajo se propondrá, en cambio, un análisis de la ganancia y valorización de la estancia, sentando una diferente perspectiva metodológica, donde el que crea valor es el productor directo, esto es, peones y esclavos.The colonial “estancias” have been recently analyzed as enterprises rationally oriented to the market. Researches estimated the utility rate and profit, according to the economic factors, especially, the investment. On the other hand, this research will propose an analysis of the profit and valuation of the estancia, proposing an alternative methodological perspective, where “peones” and slaves were the ones who create a new value