• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Yankee Doodle went toLondon:Anglo‐American breweries and theLondon securities market, 1888–92
  • Contributor: O'Sullivan, Mary A.
  • Published: Wiley, 2015
  • Published in: The Economic History Review, 68 (2015) 4, Seite 1365-1387
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12105
  • ISSN: 0013-0117; 1468-0289
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: The enthusiasm ofBritish portfolio investors forUSindustry in the late 1880s has been seen as evidence of the liberalism of theLondonStockExchange and the conservatism of theNewYorkStockExchange.Based on a study ofAnglo‐American brewing issues on theLondon market between 1888 and 1892, in this article it is argued that such an interpretation cannot be sustained.For these issues, securing access to theLondon market proved more demanding than accounts of its liberalism would lead us to expect: in fact,Anglo‐American brewing companies submitted to strictures fromLondon that were more constraining than those of theNewYork market.Promoters acceptedLondon's constraints to take advantage of the high valuations assigned toAnglo‐American brewing securities there, which reflected the city's success in building demand based on financial machinery that did not exist inNewYork.That machinery included underwriting syndicates, accounting standards, and theLondonStockExchange's listing rules, although, from this perspective, it was the rigour of the exchange's rules that was important.Still, vetting securities for quotation was not the same as for investment, as the disappointing performance of theAnglo‐American brewing securities soon revealed.