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Outputs (21)

Normative practices, narrative fallacies? International reinsurance and its history (2020)
Journal Article
Pearson, R. (in press). Normative practices, narrative fallacies? International reinsurance and its history. Business history, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1808885

Reinsurance is often characterised as a business built on personal relationships, goodwill and mutual trust. However, at different times in its history observers have warned that technological and other changes threaten the survival of normative prac... Read More about Normative practices, narrative fallacies? International reinsurance and its history.

Escaping from the State? Historical Paths to Public and Private Insurance (2020)
Journal Article
Pearson, R. (2021). Escaping from the State? Historical Paths to Public and Private Insurance. Enterprise & society, 22(4), 1037-1066. https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2020.26

The history of insurance has been characterized in most countries by the coexistence of a wide range of organizational forms. The reasons for this plethora of vehicles remain unclear, as does the impact of this diversity on the development of insuran... Read More about Escaping from the State? Historical Paths to Public and Private Insurance.

Insuring the Transatlantic Slave Trade (2019)
Journal Article
Pearson, R., & Richardson, D. (2019). Insuring the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Journal of Economic History, 79(2), 417-446. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050719000068

Copyright © 2019 The Economic History Association. One important, but overlooked, risk mitigation device that facilitated the growth of the slave trade in the eighteenth century was the increasing availability of insurance for ships and their human c... Read More about Insuring the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The Evolution of the Industry Structure (2016)
Book Chapter
Pearson, R. (2017). The Evolution of the Industry Structure. In G. Jones, & N.-V. Haueter (Eds.), Managing Risk in Reinsurance: From City Fires to Global Warming (70-91). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198754916.003.0003

Chapter 3 provides a historical overview of the reinsurance market and business development since its earliest days. It covers not only dedicated reinsurers but also other market participants, such as brokers and first insurers’ risk sharing through... Read More about The Evolution of the Industry Structure.

Carter v Boehm: facts and context (2016)
Journal Article
Pearson, R. (2016). Carter v Boehm: facts and context. Insurance Law Journal -Sydney-, 27(2-3), 113-123

There is a curious irony in the lawsuit Carter v Boehm. The final decision of the Court of King’s Bench, delivered by Chief Justice Mansfield at Easter 1766, famously articulated the principle of uberrima fides (utmost good faith), which became the s... Read More about Carter v Boehm: facts and context.

Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance (2015)
Book
Pearson, R., & Yoneyama, T. (Eds.). (2015). Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198739005.001.0001

Throughout history humans have commonly organized to prevent or mitigate risks, or to compensate for losses caused by risk events. Given the infinite variety of risks that existed, it is unsurprising that insurance—the primary modern risk mitigation... Read More about Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance.

Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance: An Overview of the History and Theory (2015)
Book Chapter
Pearson, R., & Yoneyama, T. (2015). Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance: An Overview of the History and Theory. In R. Pearson, & T. Yoneyama (Eds.), Corporate Forms and Organisational Choice in International Insurance (1-26). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198739005.003.0001

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the development of organizations in insurance worldwide from the origins of the industry to the present day and summarizes the relevant theoretical and empirical literature on this topic. It describes... Read More about Corporate Forms and Organizational Choice in International Insurance: An Overview of the History and Theory.

Organizational Choice in UK Marine Insurance (2015)
Book Chapter
Pearson, R., & Doe, H. (2015). Organizational Choice in UK Marine Insurance. In R. Pearson, & T. Yoneyama (Eds.), Corporate Forms and Organisational Choice in International Insurance (47-67). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198739005.003.0003

From the eighteenth century British marine insurance developed via a wide range of organizational forms, including individual and syndicated underwriters, mutual associations, chartered corporations, unchartered stock companies, and protection and in... Read More about Organizational Choice in UK Marine Insurance.

Organizational Forms in Insurance: A Comparison of the USA and Germany during Industrialization (2015)
Book Chapter
Pearson, R. (2015). Organizational Forms in Insurance: A Comparison of the USA and Germany during Industrialization. In R. Pearson, & T. Yoneyama (Eds.), Corporate Forms and Organisational Choice in International Insurance (114-145). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198739005.003.0006

This chapter offers the first historical comparison of organizational choice in two of the world’s leading insurance nations, the United States and Germany, as they industrialized before 1914. It provides an overview of the context in which insurance... Read More about Organizational Forms in Insurance: A Comparison of the USA and Germany during Industrialization.

Law, politics and the governance of English and Scottish joint-stock companies, 1600-1850 (2013)
Journal Article
Freeman, M., Pearson, R., & Taylor, J. (2013). Law, politics and the governance of English and Scottish joint-stock companies, 1600-1850. Business history, 55(4), 636-652. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2012.741971

This article examines the impact of law on corporate governance by means of a case study of joint-stock enterprise in England and Scotland before 1850. Based on a dataset of over 450 company constitutions together with qualitative information on gove... Read More about Law, politics and the governance of English and Scottish joint-stock companies, 1600-1850.

Mergers and concentration in the uk insurance industry (2013)
Journal Article
Pearson, R. (2013). Mergers and concentration in the uk insurance industry. Entreprises et histoire, 72(3), 7-20. https://doi.org/10.3917/eh.072.0007

As in other aspects of modern business development, the British insurance industry was a precocious exponent of mergers and acquisitions. Some of the first corporate mergers in history took place in British fire insurance during the late eighteenth c... Read More about Mergers and concentration in the uk insurance industry.

Fire, Property Insurance and Perceptions of Risk in Eighteenth-Century Britain (2010)
Book Chapter
Pearson, R. (2010). Fire, Property Insurance and Perceptions of Risk in Eighteenth-Century Britain. In G. Clark, G. Anderson, C. Thomann, & J.-M. G. von der Schulenburg (Eds.), The Appeal of Insurance (75 - 106). University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442685888

About this book
The Appeal of Insurance explores how insurance has grown in concert with a clientele largely of its own making. Drawing on the fields of history, sociology, criminology and economics, these essays illuminate the dialectical relations... Read More about Fire, Property Insurance and Perceptions of Risk in Eighteenth-Century Britain.

Between Madam Bubble and Kitty Lorimer: Women investors in British and Irish stock companies (2008)
Book Chapter
Freeman, M., Pearson, R., & Taylor, J. (2008). Between Madam Bubble and Kitty Lorimer: Women investors in British and Irish stock companies. In A. Laurence, J. Maltby, & J. Rutterford (Eds.), Women and their money, 1700-1950: Essays on women and finance (95-114). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203885994

As the pilgrims came to rest on the Enchanted Ground, Mr Stand-fast, in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684), told his friends of an encounter on the road.

‘As I was thus musing . . . there was one in very pleasant attire, but old, that presente... Read More about Between Madam Bubble and Kitty Lorimer: Women investors in British and Irish stock companies.

Social capital, institutional innovation and Atlantic trade before 1800 (2008)
Journal Article
Pearson, R., & Richardson, D. (2008). Social capital, institutional innovation and Atlantic trade before 1800. Business history, 50(6), 765-780. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076790802420336

The growth of the Atlantic economy during the eighteenth century has been associated with developments in business networking to mitigate the hazards of communication in long-distance trade. Such social capital-based mechanisms reduced transaction co... Read More about Social capital, institutional innovation and Atlantic trade before 1800.

Regulatory regimes and multinational insurers before 1914 (2008)
Journal Article
Pearson, R., & Lönnborg, M. (2008). Regulatory regimes and multinational insurers before 1914. Business History Review, 82(1), 59-86. https://doi.org/10.1017/s000768050003751x

At the end of the twentieth century, the global diffusion of one important financial service, insurance, was encouraged by deregulation, but it also encountered difficulties where deregulation remained incomplete and where there were many nonregulato... Read More about Regulatory regimes and multinational insurers before 1914.