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The Ages of Women and Men: Life Cycles, Family and Investment in the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries

Zuijderduijn, Cornelis Jaco LU (2016) In Lund Papers in Economic History. Population Economics 2016(150).
Abstract
Recent literature has suggested how late-medieval families may have used financial markets to navigate the life cycle. Precious little is known about the precise connections between the life cycle and family on the one hand and investments in financial instruments on the other, though. We analyse late-medieval investment behaviour using a new dataset of hundreds of life annuities. Our data give ages at purchase of annuitants as well as the pairings of investors in joint and survivor annuities and thus they allow us to link life-cycle events and family relationships to participation in financial markets. We demonstrate that the late-medieval public did not purchase single life annuities for children and argue this points to contemporaries... (More)
Recent literature has suggested how late-medieval families may have used financial markets to navigate the life cycle. Precious little is known about the precise connections between the life cycle and family on the one hand and investments in financial instruments on the other, though. We analyse late-medieval investment behaviour using a new dataset of hundreds of life annuities. Our data give ages at purchase of annuitants as well as the pairings of investors in joint and survivor annuities and thus they allow us to link life-cycle events and family relationships to participation in financial markets. We demonstrate that the late-medieval public did not purchase single life annuities for children and argue this points to contemporaries having preferences other than for maximizing profits. We find that women were prominent investors in life annuities, but they also showed a preference for joint and survivor annuities, which were less profitable but provided insurance for (junior) family members. Finally, although the majority of joint and survivor annuities were purchased by family members, a substantial number were for people who appear not to have been related: we suggest godparenthood may help explain pairings of apparently unrelated adults and children. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
life annuities, investment behaviour, financial history, D10, D12, E21, G11, N13
in
Lund Papers in Economic History. Population Economics
volume
2016
issue
150
pages
28 pages
publisher
Department of Economic History, Lund University
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
fb2668b0-bff6-4cc7-ab13-e34441138565
date added to LUP
2016-12-07 15:09:35
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:28:04
@misc{fb2668b0-bff6-4cc7-ab13-e34441138565,
  abstract     = {{Recent literature has suggested how late-medieval families may have used financial markets to navigate the life cycle. Precious little is known about the precise connections between the life cycle and family on the one hand and investments in financial instruments on the other, though. We analyse late-medieval investment behaviour using a new dataset of hundreds of life annuities. Our data give ages at purchase of annuitants as well as the pairings of investors in joint and survivor annuities and thus they allow us to link life-cycle events and family relationships to participation in financial markets. We demonstrate that the late-medieval public did not purchase single life annuities for children and argue this points to contemporaries having preferences other than for maximizing profits. We find that women were prominent investors in life annuities, but they also showed a preference for joint and survivor annuities, which were less profitable but provided insurance for (junior) family members. Finally, although the majority of joint and survivor annuities were purchased by family members, a substantial number were for people who appear not to have been related: we suggest godparenthood may help explain pairings of apparently unrelated adults and children.}},
  author       = {{Zuijderduijn, Cornelis Jaco}},
  keywords     = {{life annuities; investment behaviour; financial history; D10; D12; E21; G11; N13}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{150}},
  publisher    = {{Department of Economic History, Lund University}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History. Population Economics}},
  title        = {{The Ages of Women and Men: Life Cycles, Family and Investment in the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/18009367/LUP_150.pdf}},
  volume       = {{2016}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}