A Tale of “Benevolent” Governments: Private Credit Markets, Public Finance, and the Role of Jewish Lenders in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
研究了中世纪和文艺复兴时期意大利城镇中犹太放贷者对私人信贷市场和公共财政的影响，发现他们帮助家庭平滑消费、购买营运资本和提供嫁妆，同时公共财政考虑影响了利率上限的设定。
This article illustrates the impact of Jewish lenders on private credit markets and public finance in medieval and Renaissance Italian towns. In Tuscan private credit markets, Jewish lending helped households to smooth consumption, buy working capital, and provide dowries for daughters. Jewish lenders also helped the public fmances of the communes in which they resided. This article shows that public-finance considerations affected the choice of the interest-rate ceiling Jews were allowed to charge. In many instances, the communes raised the interest-rate ceiling for Jewish lenders in order to tax or borrow the proceeds.