The Development of Intermediation in French Credit Markets: Evidence from the Estates of Burgundy

Abstract

We document how intermediaries shaped markets or, conversely, how market institutions constrained intermediaries. In Dijon, where the Estates of Burgundy’s debt amounted to nearly half of all bonds in that small market, there was limited need for intermediaries. In the 1740s the borrowing needs of the province expanded, and the estates began to borrow in Paris, where their debt remained a small fraction of the market, and where they relied on notaries to place their bonds and to create a secondary market. These developments assured the estates’ capacity to borrow and thus Burgundian autonomy from the French Crown.