2,793 works, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
A long-term security need not represent a long-term commitment. This distinction anchors Gertrud Lovasy’s 1937 article on international capital movements in 1927–1936. New foreign lending had collapsed, yet European purchases of American securities continued to grow: was capital financing investment abroad, or merely seeking temporary shelter? Lovasy combines evidence from major creditor countries with an account of how currency uncertainty, exchange controls, and trade restrictions disrupt investment and transfer. She argues that some apparently durable inflows may instead be readily reversible flight funds. Her careful separation of financial instruments from investors’ purposes gives readers a concrete way to question what capital-flow statistics actually measure—and why renewed market activity need not signal renewed confidence in foreign investment.