*** ask me for a Reference Letter ***

STOCK EXCHANGES AND MARKETEER HIGH GROUND

Ancient Phoenicians didn't call the police over unpaid bills. Carthage's Stock Exchange in North Africa ran the oldest auctions: When the highest bidder failed to pay, the second-highest bid won the day.

AUCTIONS

Picture yourself sailing back to Carthage from the edges of the known world. You have no delivery schedules to meet, no buyer ordered your ship load of lapis lazuli, and even if any merchant did, no one would enforce that claim. Instead, you are worried about getting paid, at all. Carthage would encourage your unscheduled delivery by means of its auctions. On a small island at the centre of their circular harbour, potential buyers would compete over your lapis lazuli. They cast bids.

LEGACY

Self-enforcing arrangements ("no police") such as auctions not only shape modern stock exchanges, but also modern corporations, their law-insulated boards of directors, stock-based compensation of top management, central bank-independent investment banks, and new stock market listings in private equity and venture capital.

MARKET BASED SYSTEMS

In fact, modern economies are categorised into two systems based on their policing of trade: While in Germany, banks referee trade, US trading takes place mainly at its stock exchanges. While German companies borrow, US counterparts issue shares. Even America's mortgages are traded on its stock exchanges. Germany's system is therefore dubbed 'bank-based' and North America's 'market-based.'

Buy my eBook because:

THE FIRST STOCK EXCHANGE

We can trace the market-based system all the way back to ancient Carthage. While neighbour Rome exclusively used public institutions to referee (and ultimately strangle) all trade, Carthage might have run the first experiment in unpoliced trade:

An exchange for any type of cargo.

Carthage Intro Video:

https://youtu.be/cyPDOJIx1bE?si=L1KJnZAZPthqFNO2

Carthage Stock Exchange:

https://youtu.be/e6H4dzv2JUc?si=sBqrvs2tjnL8vrFF

Roman Carthage:

https://youtu.be/Byfu_rJgj3A?si=MYvmCmygj2dbBwkS

Watch out, there are two different types of company managers! This is not how a text book on Corporate Governance should begin. Modern corporations become independent from the influence of their shareholders. Dissatisfied shareholders sell rather than intervene. Stock exchanges allow disgruntled owners to tender their stock. On them, companies as wholes sell at premiums. The first known stock exchanges formed in Carthage (Tunisia), Sardinia and Sicily as early as in 600 BC. Phoenician seafarers’ wealth resulted from the markets that spread around the circular harbours. While ancient Roman neighbours benefitted from the Phoenician trade partners, their law diverged. In modern times, we witness an odd amalgamation of governance in Germany: Germany’s corporations have two legally separate governance boards. On the one hand, the functionality resulted from free markets: The most powerful directors must be separate to, and independent from, a company’s top management. Ancient Roman law disciplines German boards into obedience: The distinct types of leaders legally must divorce. Despite a larger population, Germany’s stock exchange today is less than half the volume of Britain’s. German banks not only fund their corporations. While western economies circle around stock exchanges, Germany’s small companies are subsidised and governed by the state banks. During recessions, Germany’s savers naturally insist on interest income, and force the country into austerity.

Download format: .pdf

Mobile-friendly Google Word file for Google Docs readily available upon request.

Email: MatthiasKiefer1980@hotmail.com

In case that the download fails, find the ebook here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fSUSYhrOU7VCvWHQ5KNqAEsTRfx7cMAN/view?usp=drivesdk

-------------------- PROMOTION --------------------

WHAT PURPOSE SERVED THE PLATFORM AT THE CENTRE OF ANCIENT PHOENICIAN HARBOURS ?

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*** WORKING PAPER/ EXPERIMENTAL ***

** The book proposal got rejected by giant US Publisher Wiley on 2 Jul 2024. Very confused. **

When, in 500 BC, ancient Romans glanced behind deserted Carthage's walls, they saw an irritating small island at the centre of a circular harbour. Its past purpose fell just short of catching the Romans' attention. Little did the ignorant archaeologists know that Phoenicia's recent arrivals in Carthage deliberately risked their lives whenever they stepped on the circle. It wasn't policed. On the detached platform, 20 metres in diameter, anyone could stab you unpunished. To policing Romans, the following would have made even less sense. Even a first hand oral account by a Carthaginian would have been dismissed by the Romans: That unpoliced little patch by itself enabled Carthage's whole economy. Merchant vessels from afar would dock at the little island, first, to come to an agreement about a sale, first. Meeting several bidders meant, that the arrivals could auction their cargo. They could explore the highest bid. Had that far-travelled ship had to dock directly at the main port, the mob would have plundered its cargo before it arrived. The artificial auction disk meant that a foreign trader got paid at all, and received the highest bid. Without the construction, traders would have been held up, never have ventured out, and North Africa would never have had a Phoenician economy.

DOWNLOAD the full .txt manuscript here:

drive.google.com/file/d/1IRK-MHek3SplpABWryeAyw6jxoo0q8Ow