Intermediation and the genesis of financial markets in Sweden, 1715-1765

The purpose of the project is to investigate how the activities of intermediaries in the market for government debt in Sweden were organized during the eighteenth century. This was a period when nearly all adult inhabitants for the first time owned financial instruments that could be traded on a national market. The trading activities required assistance from various types of intermediaries, which could overcome barriers such as geographical distances and incomplete information. We do not know very much about how these transactions were organized, since previous research has focused on other time periods and other ways to reduce transaction costs. The project can therefore generate new important knowledge about financial developments in Sweden.

Publications
Peter Ericsson & Patrik Winton, "Liquidating government debt and creating a secondary asset market: trading patterns, market behavior and prices on government liabilities in Sweden, c. 1719–1765", Financial History Review (2024) https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565024000015

Patrik Winton, "Servants of liquidation: The clerical staff at the First Debt Office in Sweden, c. 1719-1730", Business History (2022) https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2039632

Patrik Winton, "The growth of political instability and the royal coup in Sweden, c. 1760-1780", in István M. Szijártó, Wim Blockmans & László Kontler (eds), Parliamentarism in Northern and East-Central Europe in the Long Eighteenth Century: Volume I: Representative Institutions and Political Motivation, London: Routledge, 2022