Corporate Insurers in Antebellum America
本文通过新数据分析了1788年宪法批准至1861年间美国各州专门注册的保险公司数量与授权资本，探讨了保险业中的代理问题及其在金融经济发展中的作用，弥补了以往研究忽视保险公司的不足。
Over the last fifteen years, scholars have documented the rapid development of the U.S. financial system between the ratification of the Constitution in 1788 and the Civil War. To date, most of this work has concentrated on commercial banks and securities markets while neglecting the roles early marine, fire, life, and other insurers played in American financial and economic development. This article seeks to redress the balance by presenting new data on the number and authorized capitalizations of specially incorporated insurers in all states prior to 1861, by analyzing agency problems within the insurance industry, and by describing the economic roles fulfilled by those hitherto underappreciated corporate financial intermediaries.