Abstract
This chapter studies the transition to open access from the economic perspective. Qian collects wealth data from Boston tax rolls between 1827 and 1859 and data on bank balance sheets from 1804 to 1861. The results show that in the era of de facto free banking , bankers remained richer than other wealthy citizens, although the wealth inequality did not widen. Banks chartered in the free banking era were still politically connected, although their sizes were small. These results suggest that from the economic perspective, many bankers were still wealthy elites, and the banking sector was not owned by grassroots citizens.
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Lu, Q. (2017). Empirical Studies on Bankers’ Wealth and Bank Balance Sheets. In: From Partisan Banking to Open Access. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67645-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67645-6_5
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