Abstract
This paper examines the pooling and separating contracts designed by Australasian financial intermediaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We show that after an initial screening process these agents altered interest rates and collateral requirements to separate out risk types to reveal additional information on borrowers. In multi-period contracts agents opted for flexible contract structures which permitted changes in individual or community-wide circumstances.
Publication Details
This artice was originally published as Ville, S and Fleming, G, Financial Intermediaries and the Design of Loan Contracts in the Australasian Pastoral Sector Before World War Two, Financial History Review, 7(2), 2000, 201-218. Copyright Cambridge University Press.