Facing New Profit Pressures From Shareholders
Long-term corporate fund underwent a revolution much like that in the bank. Through the profitable 1950s and 1960s, corporations shied from debts and preferred to keep debt-equity ratios low and rely on adequate internal money for investment. The high cost of issuing bonds-a result of the competitive system of investment banking-reinforced this preference.
Usually, financial intermediaries kept the bonds that companies did issue. Individual owners, not establishments, held corporate equities mainly. In the 1980s and 1970s, corporations came to rely on external funds, so that debt-equity ratios rose substantially and interest payments absorbed a much greater part of earnings. The increased importance of external finance was itself a source of innovation as corporations sought ways to reduce the price of debt service. Equally important was increased reliance on institutional traders as buyers of securities.
When private individuals were the primary holders of equities, the brokerage business was uncompetitive and fees were high, but institutional investors used their clout to lessen the expenses of selling and buying. Market forces became a lot more important in finance, as in banking just. Institutional investors shifted portfolio strategies toward equities, partly to improve returns to meet pension liabilities after the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (1974) required full funding of future liabilities. Giving new attention to maximizing investment comes back, the institutional traders became students of the new theories of rational investment decision championed by academic economists.
The capital asset pricing model developed in the 1960s became the framework that institutional investors most used to make asset allocations. The microelectronics revolution was more important for finance than for bank even. Indeed, it would have been impossible to implement the pricing model without high-speed, inexpensive computation to calculate optimal portfolio weightings across the thousands of traded equities. You can claim that computational technology didn’t really cause the change of finance which increased attention of institutional investors was destined to result in a transformation of the point is. Both the level and acceleration of change would have been impossible, however, without advancements in computational and communications technologies.
Bodenhorn, Howard N. A History of Banking in Antebellum America: Financial Markets and Economic Development in an Era of Nation-Building. Gilbert, James William. THE ANNALS of Banking in America. Hoffmann, Susan. Politics and Banking: Ideas, Public Policy, and the Creation of Financial Institutions. Timberlake, Richard H. Monetary Policy in America: An Intellectual and Institutional History. Timberlake, Richard H. The Origins of Central Banking in America. Wicker, Elmus. Banking Panics of the Gilded Age.
See also Bank of America; Bank or investment company of the United States; Clearinghouses; BANK CARDS; Credit Unions; Federal Reserve System; Financial Panics; Financial Services Industry; Savings and Loan Associations. American credit history to 1934 was characterized by numerous bank or investment company failures, because the majority of banking institutions were local corporations, not regional or nationwide organizations with numerous branches.
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Lax state government regulations and inadequate examinations allowed many banking institutions to go after unsound methods. With most financial eggs in local economic baskets, it required only a significant crop failure or a small business tough economy precipitate dozens or even a huge selection of bank failures. Overall, state-chartered banks experienced an unhealthy record especially.
Early-nineteenth-century banking institutions were troubled with a currency lack and the ensuing lack of ability to redeem their records in specie. State governments enforced penalties in those circumstances later, but this incapability did not automatically symbolize failure. The first bank to fail was the Farmers’ Exchange Bank of Glocester, R.I., in 1809. The figures of bank or investment company failures between 1789 and 1863 are inadequate, but the loss was undoubtedly large.
John Jay Knox approximated that the losses to noteholders were 5 percent per annum, and bank or investment company notes were the chief money used by everyone. Not, until after 1853 do banking institutions’ deposit liabilities surpass their take note liabilities. Between 1830 and 1860, every week news bed linens called bank notice reporters provided the latest discount quoted on the notes of weakened and closed banks.