The World’s First Stock Exchange Lodewijk Petram
Translated by Lynne Richards A n i mmersi ve histo ry t hat revea ls t he crit ica l r o le o f huma n b ehavio r in t he develo p men t o f t h e sto ck ma rke t.
The launch of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 initiated Amsterdam’s transformation from a regional market town into a dominant financial center. The Company introduced easily transferable shares, and within days buyers had begun to trade them. Soon the public was engaging in a variety of complex transactions, including forwards, futures, options, and bear raids, and by 1680, the techniques deployed in the Amsterdam market were as sophisticated as any we practice today.
Lodewijk Petram links today’s products to yesterday’s innovations, tying the market to the behavior of individuals and the workings of the world around them. Traveling back to seventeenth-century Amsterdam, Petram visits the harbor where merchants met to strike deals. He describes the main players, investors, shady characters, speculators, and ordinary folk who played a role in the development of the market and its crises. His history clarifies concerns that investors still struggle with today, such as fraud, the value of information, trust and the place of honor, managing diverging expectations, and balancing risk, and does so in a way that is vivid, relatable, and critical to understanding our contemporary financial predicament.
“Petram’s book is a very good example of that rare specimen: a financial history for a popular audience. The reader gets a very good feeling of atmosphere, of time and place, and of the specific society that gave rise to our contemporary financial structure.” —Joost Jonker, University of Amsterdam
“Extremely accessible and clear. Petram writes for the general reader and carefully conveys intricate details in an admirably lucid way. One of the best explanations I have seen
trading still relevant today.” —Ailsa Röell, Columbia University
$29.95t / £19.95 cloth 978-0-231-16378-1 $28.99 / £20.00 ebook 978-0-231-53732-2 J u n e 304 pages B u s i n e ss / F i n a n c e Co lu m b i a B u s i n e ss S c h o o l P u b l i s h i n g
World English-language Rights: Columbia University Press; All Other Rights: Uitgeverij Atlas Contact
16 | s p r i n g 2 0 1 4
© merlijn doomernik
of various aspects of securities
Lodewijk Petram
is an economist and histo-
rian and regularly publishes on financial history in Dutch journals and newspapers. The Dutch edition of this book won the Dirk Jacob Veegens Prize from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.