Price Quotations in Early United States Securities Markets, 1790-1860 (ICPSR 4053)
Principal Investigator(s): Sylla, Richard E., New York University. Stern School of Business; Wilson, Jack W., North Carolina State University; Wright, Robert E., New York University. Stern School of Business
Summary:
The dataset is a compilation of prices of public securities (equities and bonds) traded in nine United States securities markets and in London during the period between the United States Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The data were gathered by scanning early United States periodicals chronicling the period from 1786-1862. The data were concentrated on what were termed "runs" of securities quotations broken down by days, weeks, or months for each of the ten cities in the data set. Runs are series of bids and offer quotes for different securities and maturities. Within each part (market), the data were divided by issuer sectors or types. There may be some redundancy in the data, because when there was doubt about categorizing similar issues under a key code they were categorized under separate codes.
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Study Description
Citation
Sylla, Richard E., Jack W. Wilson, and Robert E. Wright. PRICE QUOTATIONS IN EARLY UNITED STATES SECURITIES MARKETS, 1790-1860. ICPSR04053-v1. New York, NY: New York University. Stern School of Business [producer], 2002. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2005-08-24. doi:10.3886/ICPSR04053.v1
Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04053.v1
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Funding
This survey was funded by:
- National Science Foundation (SES-9730692)
Scope of Study
Subject Terms: banks, economic history, economic indicators, economic trends, market economy, price fluctuations, price indexes, price trends, prices, securities, stock market conditions, stock markets, stock prices, stocks
Geographic Coverage: Alexandria, Baltimore, Boston, Charleston (South Carolina), England, London, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Orleans, New York City, Norfolk, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Richmond, South Carolina, United Kingdom, United States, Virginia
Time Period:
- 1790--1860
Date of Collection:
- 1997--2002
Unit of Observation: Cities
Universe: Ten cities in the United States and England considered major securities markets during the time period of 1790-1860.
Data Types: administrative records data
Data Collection Notes:
(1) The SAS and SPSS files replace the Microsoft Excel and Access files as the sources of data for this study. Microsoft Excel and Access files will not be released, so please ignore references to them in the documentation. (2) Some variables, for example, F2160a, contain no data but were included because they were in the original datasets. (3) Dates were formatted by the year followed by the month and then day. An example is 1798.0828 which would be read as August 28, 1798. (4) During data collection, if a price clearly indicated a fraction but either the numerator or the denominator was unclear, a fraction of one half, transcribed as 0.5, was assumed. (5) Quotations of equities may refer to price, in dollars, or percentage of par value. As a general rule, equities in the New York dataset were quoted as percentage of par value. (6) In the London dataset, most equity prices were quoted in pounds sterling. In some cases, like the Bank of the United States, prices were given in United States dollars. (7) Abrupt shifts in quoted prices may have been due to actual changes in stock market prices or may reflect changes in the stock's par value or in the basis of quotation.
Methodology
Sample: The data were compiled from reports about stock, equities, and bonds prices. Not every periodical and price was included. Instead, the included information chronicled price quotation trends and runs during the given time period.
Data Source:
Alexandria Advertiser, 1806-1808
Alexandria Gazette, 1808-1820
American Beacon and Commercial Diary, 1815-1833
American Price Current, 1786
Advertiser, 1799-1850
Baltimore Patriot Mercantile Advertiser, 1813-1830
Baltimore Sun, 1847-1859
Baltimore [Weekly] Price Current, 1803-1860
Boston Columbia Centinel, 1790-1840
Boston Courier, 1787-1841
Boston Daily Advertiser, 1823-1836
Boston Daily Centinel and Gazette, 1836-1840
Boston Daily Commercial Gazette, 1830-1831
Boston Daily Courier, 1852-1860
Boston Gazette, 1810-1815
Boston Patriot, 1815
Boston Shipping List, Prices Current, 1843-1850
Charleston Carolina Gazette, 1823-1840
Charleston City Gazette, 1800-1832
Charleston Courier, 1803-1849
Charleston Courier Lettersheet Prices Current, 1833-1841
Charleston Mercury and Morning Advertiser, 1822-1860
The Diary, or, Loudon's Register, 1792
Finlay's American Naval and Commercial Register, 1795-1798
Grotjan's Philadelphia Public Sale Report and General Price Current, 1816-1830
Hope's Philadelphia Price Current, 1805-1813
Howard's Prices Current, 1832
Louisiana Advertiser, 1820
Louisiana Gazette New Orleans Advertiser, 1804-1812
Lyford's Baltimore Price Current, 1839-1849
Massachusetts Magazine, 1789-1794
Merchants' Daily Advertiser, 1797-1798
New Jersey Telegraph McIntyre's Bank Note List and Prices Current, 1840
New Orleans Argus, 1824-1830
New Orleans Daily Delta, 1845-1863
New Orleans Louisiana Advertiser, 1826-1835
New Orleans Price Current and Commercial Intelligencer, 1824-1830
New Orleans Price Current, Commercial Intelligence and Merchants' Transcript, 1835-1860
New York Daily Advertiser, 1790-1795
New York Daily Gazette, 1791-1795
New York Journal, 1792-1799
New York Price Current, 1797-1830
Pelosi's Marine List and Price Current, 1791-1793
Philadelphia Commercial List, 1850
Philadelphia Public Sale Report a.k.a. Philadelphia Price Current, 1827-1849
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 1833
Richmond Enquirer, 1804-1860
Richmond Whig, 1837-1857
San Francisco Shipping List and Prices Current, 1852
Southern Intelligencer, 1822
Southern Patriot and Commercial Advertiser, 1814-1843
Version(s)
Original ICPSR Release: 2005-08-24
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