Private borrowing and lending in Moscow, 1702

The essay analyzes private borrowing-and-lending in early eighteenth-century Moscow. It challenges any assumption that such interactions primarily involved commercial transactions among merchants and tradespeople; rather, these activities played an important role for Muscovites of all social strata in a developing urban economy. Disparate groups of the population behaved differently from one another when they borrowed and loaned money. Similarities in social status often helped explain individuals’ choice of partners in these transactions. However, men and women also borrowed and lent money across status categories. In examining such economic transactions, the article reveals some informal (if sometimes illegal) practices characteristic of private lending and borrowing in the city of Moscow in the early eighteenth century. Thus, this detailed study of transactions in 1702 demonstrates the existence of an active money market prior to the existence of banks. It also traces some connections between these informal arrangements and more formal financial institutions that followed, with the introduction of the first bank at mid-century

Economics · Economy · Population · Sociology · Demography · European Political History Analysis · Historical Economic and Social Studies