Single Women and the Rural Credit Market in Eighteenth-Century France

Dermineur, Elise M.

doi:10.1093/jsh/shu041

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Women represented 10.46 per cent of the lenders in the non-notarised credit market. This proportion is lower than what has been observed in the notarial credit market, as we shall see in the final section (Dermineur 2014, 2018b). Several widows and unmarried women were active lenders although they were not the biggest lenders in the network.…”

Section: IIcontrasting

confidence: 51%

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Peer-to-peer lending in pre-industrial France

Dermineur

2019

Financial History Review

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This article explores the world of informal financial transactions and informal networks in pre-industrial France. Often considered merely as simple daily transactions made to palliate a lack of cash in circulation and to smooth consumption, the examination of private transactions reveals not only that they served various purposes, including productive investments, but also that they proved to be dynamic. The debts they incurred helped to smooth consumption but also helped to make investments. Some lenders were more prominent than others, although no one really dominated the informal market. This article also compares informal transactions with formal ones through the study of probate inventories and notarial records respectively. It compares these two credit circuits, their similarities and different characteristics, and their various networks features. The debts incurred in the notarial credit market were more substantial but did not serve a different purpose than in the informal market. Here too, the biggest lenders did not monopolise the extension of capital. Perhaps the most striking result lies in the fact that the total volume of exchange between the informal credit market and the notarial credit market (after projection) was similar.

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Section: IIcontrasting

confidence: 51%

“…The capital accumulated often served to optimise their chances on the marriage market and start a household on their own. As proto-industry developed, some of these young people found employment in neighbouring towns as textile workers (Dermineur 2014).…”

Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer-to-peer lending in pre-industrial France

Dermineur

2019

Financial History Review

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“…3 The expansion of access to non-political institutions is not unique to ancient Athens. In France, for example, economic rights for women preceded the franchise, but still may have had empowering effects (Dermineur, 2014). Similarly, enforceable property rights existed for merchants in many parts of Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Kadens, 2015; Milgrom, North, & Weingast, 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tradeoffs of Inclusion: Development in Ancient Athens

Carugati

2019

Comparative Political Studies

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Inclusive institutions play an important role in development. But how do inclusive institutions emerge? Inclusion is always the product of a tradeoff. The existing literature focuses on the tradeoffs that yield an extension of the franchise, which requires costly power-sharing agreements. This article uses evidence from ancient Athens to show that meaningful forms of welfare-enhancing inclusion need not await the historically infrequent and high-stakes conditions that compel dominant elites to share power. In the 4th century BCE, the Athenians extended access to economic, social, and legal institutions to selected categories of non-citizens. They did not, however, extend the franchise. The Athenian tradeoff between political and other forms of inclusion was a response to the conflicting demands of social order and growth. While falling short of full political inclusion, the tradeoff was nonetheless conducive to political and economic development.

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“… 6 It was common for spinsters to be employed as maids, and they were often also active on the credit market; see, for instance, Dermineur 2014.…”

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confidence: 99%

A complicated puzzle: spinsters, widows and credit in Sweden (1790–1910)

Pompermaier

2021

Financial History Review

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This article aims to retrace the extent of single women's engagement in the credit market. To this end, it relies on a series of more than 1,900 probate inventories drawn up between 1790 and 1910 in the two Swedish cities of Gävle and Uppsala. These two cities represent an ideal case study, because the process of industrialisation and economic development resulted in two differently structured credit markets. The research centres initially on the problem of studying women's agency from probate inventories. It analyses the main characteristics of spinsters and widows as they emerge from the sources and compares them with married women. Subsequently, the article analyses how marital status shaped women's economic lives, affecting how they participated in the credit market. For this purpose, it focuses specifically on banking and peer-to-peer exchanges (in particular, promissory notes). Spinsters favoured more conservative strategies relying more often on the services provided by banks, while widows seemed to have played an additional, and more significant, role as lenders in peer-to-peer networks. The study also confirms that unmarried women were only rarely active as borrowers.

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Single Women and the Rural Credit Market in Eighteenth-Century France

Cited by 8 publications

References 34 publications

Peer-to-peer lending in pre-industrial France

Peer-to-peer lending in pre-industrial France

Tradeoffs of Inclusion: Development in Ancient Athens

A complicated puzzle: spinsters, widows and credit in Sweden (1790–1910)

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