Telegraph and capital market integration: Evidence from late imperial China
利用电报建设时间的外生变化，研究发现电报连接使府际利率差降低1.27个百分点，且制度质量、交通可达性和金融中介放大了这一效应，对传统票号而言信息仅在内部网络交换。
Abstract Exploiting quasi‐exogenous variations in the timing of telegraph construction, the reduction of information costs promotes capital market integration in late imperial China. Employing a difference‐in‐differences strategy, we find that telegraph connection within a prefecture pair reduced the difference in interest rate by 1.27 percentage points. Institutional quality and transportation accessibility complemented telegraph's role in enhancing capital market integration. In addition, financial intermediaries augmented the telegraph's effect on capital market integration. For the traditional banks ( piaohao ), the augmenting effect was only salient within firm boundaries, suggesting that information was only exchanged within firm‐specific networks.