Rediscovering risk: Country banks as venture capital firms in the first industrial revolution
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
University of Lausanne
刊物名称：
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
ISSN/ISSBN：
0022-0507
发表日期：
2006
页码：
74-102
关键词：
摘要：
Some English country banks were more like modem venture capital firms than modem banks in terms of legal and managerial structure, size and source of investment funding, size and nature of investments, and riskiness. This is exemplified by Praed & Co. of Truro, which was heavily engaged in financing the adoption of a risky new technology-Watt steam engines-by Cornish copper mines in the period 1775-1800. If some banks were proto-venture capital firms, rather than proto-banks, then their illiquid and relatively undiversified investment strategies are more reasonable and their bankruptcies more understandable: high-risk investments sometimes earn negative returns.