Abstract

WASSERMAN, Martín L. E.. Notary And The Visible Hand. Financial Intermediation And Credit In An Asymmetrical Information Context (Buenos Aires, 18th Century). Rev. hist. am. argent. [online]. 2021, vol.56, n.1, pp.19-62.  Epub July 01, 2021. ISSN 2314-1549.  http://dx.doi.org/10.48162/rev.44.001.

At the last third of the 18th century, Buenos Aires combined economic growth and uncertainty, meanwhile the commercial interaction in the city continued to be supported by different credit practices (as it had been since the emergence of the city).

In order to face the inherent risks of credit interaction, economic actors could deposit their credit with reliable borrowers, whose payment was assured by the relational proximity with the creditor. But the case of Buenos Aires has also shown the existence of transactions that were not limited to creditors and debtors belonging to the same circle of sociability: the credit could also be deposited in a intermediator, whose reliability mitigated the risk of relational distance between creditor and debtor. Therefore, the intermediation would rely on the intermediary's ability to efficiently managing credit information about the debtor, mitigating the risks of the operation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that notaries of Buenos Aires had as financial intermediaries in the credit market during the last third of the 18th century, through a statistical analysis of the deeds index of each notarial protocol, to evaluate the importance of the information in its intermediation performance.

Keywords : credit; intermediation; finances; information; Buenos Aires.

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