Concerning France, we made several contributions to the literature on how and when credit markets became national. First, we explore the case of modern France, a country for which, in comparison to neighboring nations such as Germany and Italy, we still lack of substantial quantitative studies on regional market openness in historical perspective. Second, we look at financial integration from the point of view of so far neglected actors, namely central banks, which until now have been overwhelmingly studied in their institutional development and for the evolution of their monetary policies (both in a national and international context) rather than as local makers of private credit markets . The results of the project can therefore also be read as a novel contribution to the role played by the Banque de France as an agent of integration on local credit markets. Our first finding is that – among the bills discounted by the central bank – the share of national bills increased sharply during the 1920s, after a long quasi-stagnation throughout the 19th century. The banking crises of the Great Depression stopped the rise but did not trigger a return to pre-war level. Second, the increase of "national" financial transactions in the 1920s is associated with the largest increase in commercial bank branches in French history. Our argument is that after World War I, the French credit markets suddenly become very different from what it had been before. Among other things, this implies that the chronology of the development of a national credit market was different from the chronology of international financial integration (the end of the first globalization being often dated to the break of WWI). The decade that stands between the end of WWI and the Great Depression experienced one of the most radical and rapid shifts in financial history.
Concerning Italy, the dataset - collecting the most relevant data on the provincial credit activities of the Italian banks of issue - will be made public , in line with Horizon 2020 policy on the dissemination of historical statistics as common goods and according to the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable) principles of data management. Moreover, the dataset naturally lends itself to processing through Historical Geographical Information Systems (HGIS). In the medium term, we are planning to establish a dedicated website that will present the data and include a story map that illustrates our main findings on the credit policy of the Italian banks of issue by combining text, interactive maps and other multimedia content.
With regard to the industrial policy of the bank of Italy, our research finds that ‘managing instability’ was the main goal of the central bank in the period 1893-1926. A ‘pragmatic approach’ in central banking appeared to be the norm in that period. While the provision of industrial finance proved the norm more than the exception, that approach did not match at all the best practice of central banking, i.e. the principles of independence and price stability, as it has long been postulated in the dominant macroeconomic theory until the financial crisis in 2007-8 and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic.
Overall, the main potential users of the project results will be the international community of economic historians.
