Culture Of Credit Research Articles

Trade Acceptances, Financial Reform, and the Culture of Commercial Credit in the United States, 1915–1920

This article examines the nationwide campaign by financial reformers in the 1910s to convince businesses across the United States to abandon established commercial credit practices and use trade acceptances—the quintessential “real bill”—in their stead. The creation of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) and the outbreak of World War I offered a powerful coalition of campaigners the opportunity to forcefully argue that by capitalizing open account credit, trade acceptances fostered good business practices and stabilized the banking and financial systems. These campaigners relied on trade associations to disseminate, and the federal government to legitimize, their message. While some firms obliged, many businesses and banks criticized the campaigners’ arguments, casting trade acceptances as a means of financial centralization and as being contrary to the American culture of credit. Trade acceptances did not supplant promissory notes or trade in the open market and were rarely used by banks to access Fed liquidity. Instead, their legacy lies in their adoption by finance companies in the hope of securing financing for the distribution and mass consumption of consumer durables.

National culture and small firms' use of trade credit: Evidence from Europe

We examine the use of trade credit in Western Europe by relying on a sample of 182,296 small firms for the period 2003–2013. Building on information asymmetry theory, we explore how a country's culture can impact SMEs use of trade credit. We discover that countries' cultural norms play a key role in explaining trade credit differences in Europe. We find that in countries with high power distance, high individualism, high masculinity, and high uncertainty avoidance rely more on trade credit.

Chinese culture, materialism and corporate supply of trade credit

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how cultural value in materialism affects corporate supply of trade credits.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 14,710 firm-year observations of Chinese listed firms from 1998 to 2012, the authors examine the influence of regional materialism on accounts receivable.FindingsThe authors find that listed firms within more materialistic tend to extend less trade credit to their customers, in particular in long-term categories of trade credit. Such negative effects can be significantly mitigated by state control, suggesting the effects are more pronounced in privately controlled listed firms. The negative effects of materialism still hold after controlling for other regional factors, such as trust, GDP per capita or institutional development.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors show materialism as a cultural construct varies across Chinese regions, and it could have important impact on corporate supply of trade credits, besides the previous found effects on consumer use of credit.Originality/valueThis paper expands the literature about the influence of materialism on economic decision making from the individual level to the corporate level.

Feeling for Forgers: Character, Sympathy and Financial Crime in London during the Late Eighteenth Century

AbstractSympathy for forgers was not uncommon in the eighteenth century. This article reveals the emotional underside of the culture of credit, demonstrating the importance of emotions to understanding multivalent forms of capital such as ‘honour’ and ‘credit’. It explores the relationship between the courtroom and public opinion, and suggests that trials for forgery evoked a set of emotional responses that was specific to a particular emotional community. Using a history of emotions approach, the article explains how and why emotion was evoked, performed and interpreted within the courtroom space, and how this influenced eighteenth‐century attitudes to forgery.

Review of 'The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England'

Review of 'The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England'

New Purcell Documents from the Court of King's Bench

Two legal documents recently discovered among The National Archives at Kew in London provide new information about Henry Purcell's final years. The only known instances of the composer's involvement with the law, these rare archival finds shed light on his familial relations and financial circumstances at that point in his career when he was turning his attention to the London stage. The first case involves Purcell's sister-in-law Amy Howlett, who owed him £40; and the second concerns his unpaid bill at an exclusive West End retailer's. The new material confirms beyond doubt the identity of Purcell's in-laws, and shows that he was not just short of money in the 1690s, but that he was actually in debt at the time of his death. Other areas of enquiry include the élite social milieu in which the Purcells increasingly moved, and their possible place of residence in 1691–3. These aspects are discussed in relation to Purcell's enhanced public profile at that time, and within the wider context of the culture of consumption and credit in late seventeenth-century England. The two lawsuits are transcribed and translated in full, and their legal implications explicated.

Trust, Capitalism and Contract in English Economic History: 1500-1750

As most market transactions involved the extension of informal credit because of a lack of ready cash, this meant that interpersonal trust was of central importance, and, as a result, a reputation for honesty and fair dealing in the community was vital to being successful. Money was used only in a limited number of exchanges, and credit, in the form of household reputation, was a “cultural currency” of trust used to transact most business. Trust, belief, and credit all went together, and no distinction was made between economic and social credit, as credit produced wealth and status of the middling sort. As the market expanded in the late sixteenth century, networks of credit became more intertwined over longer geographical distances, and thus trust became more problematic, and disputes over debts led to contention. These produced an enormous amount of litigation as the common law was increasingly used to enforce contracts. This led to much downward mobility through over-indebtedness, which reinforced the social importance of having good credit, and consequently the culture of credit became increasingly legalised. Although competition for credit together with the need to maintain household profitability put stress on the social maintenance of trust in the market, the economy could not work without it. As a result, the increase in commerce was seen as an essentially sociable activity because it required trust. Trust gradually came to be interpreted as the basis of justice, and the necessity of keeping promises, as the foundation of all social organisation. But by 1750 litigation had collapsed to a very low level, and self- control and politeness on the part of rational individuals came to play a more important role in dispute settlement than legal means. Whereas in the early modern period conflict occurred and was dealt with after its occurrence, self-control aimed to prevent inter-personal conflict and litigation before they happened. As a result, the concepts of “capital” and “savings” developed in the eighteenth century, and the structure of credit networks was changed.

Cymbeline: Arithmetic, Double-Entry Bookkeeping, Counts, and Accounts

The importance of commercial arithmetic and double-entry bookkeeping (or “debitor and creditor” accounting) has been traced in The Merchant of Venice, Othello, the Sonnets, and other works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. But even though both are explicitly cited in Cymbeline (the only Shakespeare play other than Othello to invoke double-entry by its contemporary English name), their importance for this late Shakespearean tragicomic romance has yet to be explored. This article traces multiple ways in which Cymbeline is impacted by arithmetic and the arts of calculation, risk-taking, surveying, and measuring; its pervasive language of credit, usury, gambling, and debt, as well as slander infidelity and accounting counterfeiting; the contemporary conflation of the female “O” with arithmetic’s zero or “cipher” in relation to alleged infidelity; and the larger problem of trust (from credere and credo) that is crucial to this play as well as to early modern England’s culture of credit.

Errors expected: the culture of credit in rural New England, 1750–1800

This article uses farm diaries from eighteenth‐century New England recast as account books in order to describe more accurately the rules of exchange and the culture of credit that prevailed in early America. This culture, which was post‐medieval yet pre‐modern, derived its fundamental characteristics from the fact that it connected participants who dealt with one another as formal equals before the law. It employed strategies inside and outside the market, and, rather than embracing or rejecting commercial activity, aimed to use whatever means necessary to achieve for householders the goal of comfortable independence.

Honor, Brotherhood, and the Corporate Ethos of London's Barber-Surgeons' Company, 1570-1640

As the largest and most civically active body of medical practitioners in the late Tudor and early Stuart period, surgeons played a vital role in London's urban landscape, but remained precariously vulnerable to abasement due to the regular contact with death and disease necessitated by their work. Based on an analysis of guild records, printed surgical manuals, and conduct literature, this study explores the emergent corporate ethos of London's Barber-Surgeons' Company and addresses the identity formation of surgeons in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. By implementing codes of conduct and uniform standards of practice, punishing transgressions of propriety, and developing legislation to limit the activities of unlicensed and foreign practitioners, Company officers ardently sought social and occupational legitimacy within a milieu characterized by a tremendous emphasis on status and hierarchy. Rooted in methodology drawn from the social history of medicine and cultural anthropology, this study argues that in response to the persistent stigma associated with their work and London's increasingly prevalent culture of credit, surgeons, like other artisanal groups, sought to enhance their social legitimacy and occupational respectability by manipulating contemporary social rituals, reinforcing the honorable associations of their work, and preserving the veneer of brotherhood and camaraderie.

:A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business.(Harvard Studies in Business History, number 50.)

:A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business.(Harvard Studies in Business History, number 50.)

Rowena Olegario. A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006. vii + 274 pp. ISBN 0-674-02340-4, $39.95 (cloth).

Rowena Olegario. A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006. vii + 274 pp. ISBN 0-674-02340-4, $39.95 (cloth).

A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business

A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business

A culture of credit: embedding trust and transparency in American business

In the growing and dynamic economy of 19th century America, businesses sold vast quantities of goods to one another, mostly on credit. This book explains how business people solved the problem of whom to trust - how they determined who was deserving of credit, and for how much.

The Culture of Credit in Eighteenth-Century Commerce: The English Textile Industry

In this article, I seek to expand the relatively narrow focus of most work on commercial credit in eighteenth-century England by incorporating culture into an economic analysis. I argue that the various credit regimes that operated in the regional branches of the English wool textile industry are best understood as having a cultural dimension. A comparative analysis of business strategies in these regions suggests that the different cultures of credit had important implications for the development of the textile industry during the eighteenth century, shaping the character of the entrepreneurship of each region's merchants and producers.

The Culture of Credit in Eighteenth-Century Commerce: The English Textile Industry

In this article, I seek to expand the relatively narrow focus of most work on commercial credit in eighteenth-century England by incorporating culture into an economic analysis. I argue that the various credit regimes that operated in the regional branches of the English wool textile industry are best understood as having a cultural dimension. A comparative analysis of business strategies in these regions suggests that the different cultures of credit had important implications for the development of the textile industry during the eighteenth century, shaping the character of the entrepreneurship of each region's merchants and producers.

Authorship, Commerce and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit. Catherine Ingrassia

<i>Authorship, Commerce and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit</i>. Catherine Ingrassia

Credit and Culture in Early Modern England - Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit. By Catherine Ingrassia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xi + 230. $59.95 (cloth). - The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. By Craig Muldrew. London: Macmillan Press, 1998. Pp. xvii

Credit and Culture in Early Modern England - Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit. By Catherine Ingrassia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xi + 230. 69.95 (cloth). - Volume 41 Issue 1

Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit (review)

Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit (review)

The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. By Craig Muldrew. London: Macmillan, 1998. Pp. xvii, 453. $69.95.

The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. By Craig Muldrew. London: Macmillan, 1998. Pp. xvii, 453. $69.95.