TY  - JOUR
AU  - Wandschneider, Kirsten
TI  - Lending to Lemons: Landschafts-Credit in 18th Century Prussia
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 19159
PY  - 2013
Y2  - June 2013
DO  - 10.3386/w19159
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19159
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19159.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kirsten Wandschneider
Department of Business, Economics and Statistics 
Department of Economic and Social History
University of Vienna
Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1
1090 Vienna
Vienna 1090
Austria
E-Mail: kirsten.wandschneider@univie.ac.at
M1  - published as Kirsten Wandschneider. "Lending to Lemons: Landschaft Credit in Eighteenth-Century Prussia," in Eugene N. White, Kenneth Snowden, and Price Fishback, editors, "Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective" University of Chicago Press (2014)

M3  - presented at "Universities Research Conference", September 23-24, 2011
AB  - The following paper describes the emergence of cooperative mortgage credit associations, called "Landschaften" in 18th century Prussia, and thereby tells the history of mortgage-covered bonds. Landschaften facilitated the refinancing of loans for Prussian estates by issuing covered bonds (Pfandbriefe) that were jointly backed by their members. They relied on dual recourse, cooperative structure, joint liability, and local administration to overcome asymmetric information problems related to lending. Their emergence serves as an example for financial innovation in historical mortgage markets. Pfandbriefe exist to this day and are known for their security. Their success goes back to some of the historical features.
ER  -