Stephen Haber is A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. He is the author of How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914; Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890-1940; and The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929 (with Armando Razo and Noel Maurer). Douglass C. North is a pioneering economic historian and the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1993). A Professor of Economics at Washington University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, he is the author of Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance and Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Barry R. Weingast is the Ward C. Krebs Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions (with Kenneth A. Shepsle); Preferences and Situations: Points of Contact between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalisms (with Ira Katznelson); and The Handbook Political Economy (with Donald Wittman).

"The greatest virtue of this book is the frontal assault it launches against the 'legal origins' view of financial development—the view that traces a country's current financial situation back to its history, especially its history as a colony. Political Institutions and Financial Development should drive a stake through its heart and move scholars on to more fruitful areas of research." —Philip T. Hoffman, California Institute of Technology

• Contents Contributors000 Acknowledgments000 Chapter 1: Political Institutions and Financial Development000 Stephen Haber, Douglass C. North, and Barry R. Weingast Chapter 2: Political Institutions and Financial Development: Evidence from the Political Economy of Bank Regulation in Mexico and the United States000 Stephen Haber Chapter 3: The Political Economy of Early U.S. Financial Development000 Richard Sylla Chapter 4: Answering Mary Shirley's Question, or: What Can the World Bank Learn from American History?000 John Joseph Wallis Chapter 5: Beyond Legal Origin and Checks and Balances: Political Credibility, Citizen Information, and Financial Sector Development000 Philip Keefer Chapter 6: The Microeconomic Effects of Different Approaches to Bank Supervision 000 James R. Barth, Gerard Caprio, and Ross Levine Chapter 7: Political Drivers of Diverging Corporate Governance Patterns000 Peter Gourevitch and James Shinn Chapter 8: Credible Commitment and Sovereign Default Risk: Two Bond Markets and Imperial Brazil000 William R. Summerhill Chapter 9: Legal Origin vs. the Politics of Creditor Rights: Bond Markets in Brazil, 1850\-2002000 Aldo Musacchio Chapter 10: Conclusion: Economics, Political Institutions, and Financial Markets000 Douglass C. North and Mary Shirley Index000

Stephen Haber is A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. He is the author of How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914; Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890-1940; and The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929 (with Armando Razo and Noel Maurer). Douglass C. North is a pioneering economic historian and the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1993). A Professor of Economics at Washington University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, he is the author of Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance and Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Barry R. Weingast is the Ward C. Krebs Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions (with Kenneth A. Shepsle); Preferences and Situations: Points of Contact between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalisms (with Ira Katznelson); and The Handbook Political Economy (with Donald Wittman).

"The greatest virtue of this book is the frontal assault it launches against the 'legal origins' view of financial development—the view that traces a country's current financial situation back to its history, especially its history as a colony. Political Institutions and Financial Development should drive a stake through its heart and move scholars on to more fruitful areas of research." —Philip T. Hoffman, California Institute of Technology

• Contents Contributors000 Acknowledgments000 Chapter 1: Political Institutions and Financial Development000 Stephen Haber, Douglass C. North, and Barry R. Weingast Chapter 2: Political Institutions and Financial Development: Evidence from the Political Economy of Bank Regulation in Mexico and the United States000 Stephen Haber Chapter 3: The Political Economy of Early U.S. Financial Development000 Richard Sylla Chapter 4: Answering Mary Shirley's Question, or: What Can the World Bank Learn from American History?000 John Joseph Wallis Chapter 5: Beyond Legal Origin and Checks and Balances: Political Credibility, Citizen Information, and Financial Sector Development000 Philip Keefer Chapter 6: The Microeconomic Effects of Different Approaches to Bank Supervision 000 James R. Barth, Gerard Caprio, and Ross Levine Chapter 7: Political Drivers of Diverging Corporate Governance Patterns000 Peter Gourevitch and James Shinn Chapter 8: Credible Commitment and Sovereign Default Risk: Two Bond Markets and Imperial Brazil000 William R. Summerhill Chapter 9: Legal Origin vs. the Politics of Creditor Rights: Bond Markets in Brazil, 1850\-2002000 Aldo Musacchio Chapter 10: Conclusion: Economics, Political Institutions, and Financial Markets000 Douglass C. North and Mary Shirley Index000

Stephen Haber is A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. He is the author of How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914; Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890-1940; and The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929 (with Armando Razo and Noel Maurer). Douglass C. North is a pioneering economic historian and the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1993). A Professor of Economics at Washington University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, he is the author of Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance and Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Barry R. Weingast is the Ward C. Krebs Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions (with Kenneth A. Shepsle); Preferences and Situations: Points of Contact between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalisms (with Ira Katznelson); and The Handbook Political Economy (with Donald Wittman).

"The greatest virtue of this book is the frontal assault it launches against the 'legal origins' view of financial development—the view that traces a country's current financial situation back to its history, especially its history as a colony. Political Institutions and Financial Development should drive a stake through its heart and move scholars on to more fruitful areas of research." —Philip T. Hoffman, California Institute of Technology

• Contents Contributors000 Acknowledgments000 Chapter 1: Political Institutions and Financial Development000 Stephen Haber, Douglass C. North, and Barry R. Weingast Chapter 2: Political Institutions and Financial Development: Evidence from the Political Economy of Bank Regulation in Mexico and the United States000 Stephen Haber Chapter 3: The Political Economy of Early U.S. Financial Development000 Richard Sylla Chapter 4: Answering Mary Shirley's Question, or: What Can the World Bank Learn from American History?000 John Joseph Wallis Chapter 5: Beyond Legal Origin and Checks and Balances: Political Credibility, Citizen Information, and Financial Sector Development000 Philip Keefer Chapter 6: The Microeconomic Effects of Different Approaches to Bank Supervision 000 James R. Barth, Gerard Caprio, and Ross Levine Chapter 7: Political Drivers of Diverging Corporate Governance Patterns000 Peter Gourevitch and James Shinn Chapter 8: Credible Commitment and Sovereign Default Risk: Two Bond Markets and Imperial Brazil000 William R. Summerhill Chapter 9: Legal Origin vs. the Politics of Creditor Rights: Bond Markets in Brazil, 1850\-2002000 Aldo Musacchio Chapter 10: Conclusion: Economics, Political Institutions, and Financial Markets000 Douglass C. North and Mary Shirley Index000