Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Formation of Money and the Banking System in Italy and the United States, 1860-1920

从历史上看，现代国家曾试图垄断货币的发行和控制：在什么条件下，它们在多大程度上取得了成功？国家对市场和经济的干预在多大程度上转化为更稳定，或者相反，国家的存在是金融投机的先决条件？从货币社会学的角度出发，本项目考察了19世纪60年代至第一次世界大战后意大利和美国银行和金融体系的形成。这两种情况在许多方面（如规模、自然资源禀赋、工业化水平）是不同的。然而，出乎意料的是，它们在银行和金融发展以及政治权力下放方面有着惊人的相似之处。它们都是较晚的政治发展者，在集中政治权力对抗外围势力的拉动方面面临巨大困难；他们都很晚才建立了中央银行，并在面临巨大政治反对的情况下将货币置于国家垄断之下。此外，两国都经历了关于如何组织货币和经济的旷日持久的政治辩论，美国倾向于民粹主义，而意大利则拥抱民族主义框架。通过战略性地使用这种比较，本项目使用了混合方法：首先，它定量地分析了两种情况下参与国民经济建设的各种银行行为者的资产负债表活动。通过调查不同种类的货币和金融关系是如何形成和使用的，该项目努力表明，是否像新古典经济故事中那样，国家起源货币（如政府股票和国库券）的扩散“排挤”了私人投资，或者实际上允许不稳定和投机性金融利益的构成。如果是这样的话，这些利益集团是如何从与政府合作所提供的保证中获得物质和象征上的好处的呢？其次，通过对1860-1920年期间私人银行家、公共银行家和国家官员之间的私人信函、公开声明和法律调查进行定性研究，本项目考察了意大利和美国的货币和经济是否以及如何以不同的方式文化建构，以及这种建构是否影响了货币制度化的方式。更广泛的影响。本项目关注“民族文化”对金融政策的存在及其影响，从而进入社会科学领域的重要争论。通过展示金钱以何种方式促进了经济中特定思维和行为方式的制度化，本研究将通过展示国家“传统”实际上是如何产生的，批判性地参与到这一观点中。面对全球化迫使国家顺应世界文化模式的压力，这一点尤其重要，而不考虑社会特有的资产和优势。其次，随着各国试图设计新的经济组织方式，并越来越多地由技术官僚管理，对制度的社会学基础的关注似乎比以往任何时候都更加重要。改变货币工具（例如用欧元取代欧洲货币）可能不是一个有效的政策，如果没有权力的政治重组，以及政治制度的创建，可以“驯化”新兴的金融精英，也就是说，约束新的金融行为者“适当”使用货币。通过关注与当前自由贸易和国际资本流动的国际形势分析相似的历史时期，本项目将关于市场和国家的辩论重新塑造为稳定和投机的辩论，从而有助于发现促进前者和最小化后者的制度设置。

Randall CollinsSimone PolilloUniversity of PennsylvaniaHistorically, modern states have tried to monopolize the issue and control of money: under what conditions and to what extent did they succeed? To what extent has increasing intervention of the state in the market and the economy translated into more stability, or is the presence of the state, on the contrary, a pre-condition for speculative uses of finance? From a sociology-of-money perspective, this project examines the formation of a banking and financial system in Italy and the United States between the 1860s and the post-First-World-War period. These two cases are different on many accounts (such as size, natural resource endowment, level of industrialization). Unexpectedly, however, they share striking similarities in terms of banking and financial development, and political decentralization. They were both late political developers, facing enormous difficulties in centralizing political power against the pull of peripheral forces; they both created a central bank late, and brought the currency under the monopoly of the state in the face of great political opposition. Moreover, both countries experienced drawn-out political debates on how money and the economy in general should be organized, the United States tending towards populism, Italy embracing instead a nationalist frame.By using this comparison strategically, this project uses mixed methods: first, it analyzes quantitatively the balance-sheet activities of the various banking actors involved in the construction of a national economy in both cases. By investigating how different kinds of monies and financial relationships were formed and put to use, the project strives to show whether the proliferation of state-originating monies (such as government stock and Treasury bills) "crowded out" private investment, as in the neo-classical economy story, or in fact allowed for the constitution of destabilizing and speculative financial interests. If that is the case, how did such interests come to benefit materially and symbolically by the guarantee offered by a collaboration with the state? Second, by examining qualitatively the negotiations between private bankers, public bankers and state officials through their private correspondence, public pronouncements and legal investigations over the 1860-1920 period, this project examines whether, and how money and the economy were culturally constructed in different ways in Italy and the United States, and whether that such constructions affected the ways in which money was institutionalized. Broader Impact. This project focuses on the existence and effects of "national culture" on financial policy, thus entering an important debate in social science. By showing in what ways money contributes to the institutionalization of particular ways of thinking and acting in the economy, this research will critically engage the idea that national "traditions" matter by showing how in fact they are created. This is especially important in the face of globalization pressures on the state to conform to world-cultural models, irrespective of society-specific assets and advantages.Second, as states are attempting to devise new ways of organizing their economies, and as these are increasingly being managed by technocrats, attention to the sociological underpinnings of institutions seems to be more crucial than ever. Changing monetary instruments (such as the substitution of the Euro for European currencies) might not be an effective policy s without a political reconfiguration of power, and the creation of political institutions which can "domesticate" emerging financial elites, that is, bind new financial actors to "appropriate" uses of money. By focusing on a historical period which is analytically similar to the current international situation of free trade and mobile international capital, this project recasts the debate on markets and states as one of stability and speculation, and can thus contribute to the discovery of institutional settings that promote the former and minimize the latter.