Innovation and upheaval: early growth in Greek capital market listings and IPOs from 1880 to the Second World War in the Athens Stock Exchange

The establishment and growth of the Greek stock market were coincident with development episodes, financial upheavals, and geographic expansions of the country's economy over the period 1880-1940. This article explores the growth of the Athens Stock Exchange through new listings and initial pub...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Economic history review Vol. 70; no. 3; pp. 859 - 892
Main Authors THOMADAKIS, STAVROS, GOUNOPOULOS, DIMITRIOS, NOUNIS, CHRISTOS, RIGINOS, MICHALIS
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford John Wiley & Sons Ltd 01.08.2017
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
19th century
20th century
Capital markets
Domestic markets
Economic history
Globalization
Governance
Initial public offerings
Innovations
New stock market listings
Securities markets
Stock exchanges
World War I
World War II
Greece
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Summary:The establishment and growth of the Greek stock market were coincident with development episodes, financial upheavals, and geographic expansions of the country's economy over the period 1880-1940. This article explores the growth of the Athens Stock Exchange through new listings and initial public offerings (IPOs) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We examine changes in exchange governance and listing requirements. On a theme not addressed before, we find that simple listings were far more numerous than actual IPOs. IPOs in Greece remained unregulated throughout the period. Their under-pricing became pronounced in the later parts of the period, especially the 1920s. The study presents data on 'quasi-IPOs' (that is, capital increases shortly after listing) and shows that they offer a more accurate assessment of the demand for the financing of listing firms in an emerging market. Robust evidence is presented to show that as the Exchange developed it also underwent a change in character, becoming more oriented to the domestic market and catering to smaller firms in domestic manufacturing in the post-First World War era that marked the end of early globalization.
Bibliography:We gratefully acknowledge the editor in charge of this article (Jaime Reis), editorial assistant (Heather Falvey), and three anonymous referees for their detailed and insightful comments. We also thank Adrian Bell, Carsten Burhop, Walid Busaba, Brian Cheffins, David Chambers, Olga Christodoulaki, Georgios Dertilis, Elroy Dimson, Nikolaos Filippas, Caroline Fohlin, William Goetzman, Andreas Kornelakis, Sibylle Lehman, Jay Ritter, Christian Schlag, Nikolaos Travlos, Steve Toms, and seminar participants at the Department of Economics at the University of Athens, the Department of Accounting and Finance at Athens University of Economics and Business, the Department of Economics at the University of Piraeus, the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Leeds, the Department of Business and Management at the University of Sussex, and the Centre for Planning and Economic Research for useful comments and suggestions. We would like to thank participants of the European Business History Conference 2013 in Uppsala for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. Special thanks are due to the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics and an anonymous reviewer at LSE and to the Greek Parliament, the Athens Stock Exchange, the National Bank of Greece and the Hellenic Capital Market Commission for data availability.
ISSN:0013-0117
1468-0289
DOI:10.1111/ehr.12381