Kerry Odell

The Integration of Regional and Interregional Capital Markets: Evidence from the Pacific Coast, 1883–1913

The literature on national capital market integration in nineteenth-century America has overlooked the role of markets at a regional level. Such markets were important in reducing the possible burden of isolation by efficiently recycling local savings, and in promoting eventual integration into a national financial market. This article presents evidence that a commercial market centered on San Francisco extended into the Pacific Coast states and formed the basis for a regional financial market. The degree of market integration is measured through tests of interest rate covariability and convergence.