1. For more on the links between political instability and economic volatility, see Alesina and Perotti (1996).
2. To give one example, although all newly formed joint-stock companies had to submit Articles of Association to the Committee of the Stock Exchange before they could be listed on the London Stock Exchange, no pre-quotation checks or investigations were ever made by the Committee to see whether the numbers quoted in these documents were fictitious or not (Robb, 2002: 82–83).
3. On top of these measures, steps were also taken by the leading London merchant banks and finance houses to exclude unscrupulous financiers from the business of underwriting bills of exchange and foreign bond issues, with the end result being the establishment of the Accepting Houses Committee (AHC) in 1914 (Kynaston, 2000: 3).
4. The Manchester Guardian (30 June 1927), p. 13.
5. Ibid. (13 October 1927), p. 19.