Lending a hand: help banks in the Netherlands, 1848–1898

Abstract Households and small businesses are often confronted with funding gaps due to small-scale lending problems. Whereas existing research focused primarily on how rural areas addressed such problems, this paper determines what contributed to the success of urban help banks in the Netherlands (1848–1898). It considers how help banks’ lending mechanism, corporate governance mechanism, and historical circumstances lowered operating costs. The latter was crucial and depended on elites with philanthropic and practical considerations, who housed, staffed, and funded help banks at modest costs.... Mehr ...

Verfasser: de Vicq, Amaury
van Bochove, Christiaan
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Reihe/Periodikum: European Review of Economic History ; ISSN 1361-4916 1474-0044
Verlag/Hrsg.: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Schlagwörter: Economics / Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous) / History
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26834692
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ereh/head015

Abstract Households and small businesses are often confronted with funding gaps due to small-scale lending problems. Whereas existing research focused primarily on how rural areas addressed such problems, this paper determines what contributed to the success of urban help banks in the Netherlands (1848–1898). It considers how help banks’ lending mechanism, corporate governance mechanism, and historical circumstances lowered operating costs. The latter was crucial and depended on elites with philanthropic and practical considerations, who housed, staffed, and funded help banks at modest costs. This mix provides guidance to small-scale lenders, including microcredit institutions, to address funding gaps and tailor their services.