The Proximate Determinants of Domestic Investment in Victorian Britain

Abstract

This paper attempts to shed new light on the proximate determinants of domestic investment in Victorian Britain by focusing on the relationship between asset markets and investment behavior. It demonstrates that Victorian investment fluctuations were associated with divergences between the valuation of installed capital as determined in asset markets and the supply price of new capital as determined in commodity markets. After showing how investment fluctuations in Victorian Britain were related to real equity prices, the paper concludes with a summary of findings on the determinants of real share prices.