Government debts and credit markets in Renaissance Italy

At first sight a marked difference turns out among the Italian governments of early Renaissance: the means of financing their deficit. There are, on the one hand, communal cities and republics, raising money from citizens through the system of forced or voluntary loans; there are, on the other, princes and lords who exploit services of bankers and merchants. These two different systems of borrowing bring about significant financial and political aspects. In this paper I will examine the main features characterizing the two mechanisms of indebtedness and the implications concerning the emergence of a true financial market connected with state bonds.Public debts; Renaissance Italy; financial markets; financial institutions

Una fiera senza luogo. Was Bisenzone an offshore capital market in sixteenth-century Italy?

This paper discusses how Genoese bankers collected money at exchange fairs. This money was then lent to the King of Spain - through the asientos - from the mid-sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. Genoese bankers raised capital at the exchange fairs , which were typical short-term credit mechanism, where foreign bills of exchange were discounted over a three-month period. The Genoese funded long-term obligations by means of short term loans which meant they were able to enforce payment to the King and at the same time successfully manage the supply of finance from a large number of easily substitutable markets, located in different states. The Bisenzone fair of exchange was the forerunner to an efficient, widely integrated international capital market where Genoese pre-eminence was firmly established and which the Genoese kept firmly under their control. The success of the Bisenzone fairs of exchange directly challenges the theory which suggests that the laws against usury restrained the development of capital markets in early modern Italy.Financial markets, market integration, financial institutions

Resistenza, adesione e frode fiscale nell'Europa della prima età moderna

The refusal to pay taxes and to fulfil tax obligations correctly has always characterised relations between taxpayers and fiscal authorities. The taxpayer’s fraudulent behaviour takes the form of misrepresentation or even the concealment of his income. The most common form of evasion is the declaration of a lower amount of income than that actually received or the claiming of an amount of exemptions and deductions beyond the legal level. But resistance to tax also manifests itself in other forms: by delaying payment, even by legal means, or even refusing to pay the amount due, to the point of violently opposing collection. This essay examines some forms of resistance to taxes in Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries, trying to highlight similarities and possible differences between various countries

The economics of debt clearing mechanisms

We examine the evolution of decentralized clearinghouse mechanisms from the 13th to the 18th century; in particular, we explore the clearing of non- or limitedtradable debts like bills of exchange. We construct a theoretical model of these clearinghouse mechanisms, similar to the models in the theoretical matching literature, and show that specific decentralized multilateral clearing algorithms known as rescontre, skontrieren or virement des parties used by merchants were efficient in specific historical contexts. We can explain both the evolutionary self-organizing emergence of late medieval and early modern fairs, and its robustness during the 17th and 18th century