第一次大戦直後におけるイギリス産業とロンドン資本市場

抄録

This paper deals with the new capital issue boom in the London capital market during the period of 1918-1920 and how large companies in those days committed themselves in the boom. Previously this boom has been characterized as essentially domestic and prominent with large issue by leading companies. However, it should also be pointed out that there were many speculative issues which were not connected with industrial development in the process of the boom.
In order to clarify whether the boom played an important role in domestic capital formation or merely a speculative one, we have analyzed the amount of new capital raised by the issue, and the proportion of capital used for spending on equipment outlays in each issue, utilizing the prospectuses of companies and other documents.
As a result of this investigation, we concluded that the boom had a great significance for the development of British industries, especially large companies belonging to the so-called heavy industrial sector. Though many large companies made considerable use of bonus issues during the period, they also expanded their assets substantially by new capital issues in the capital market.
However, there were some instances of companies which had to face difficulties connected with the heavy burden of over-capitalization in the 1920's. These companies had to discover means for effective management of huge assets. For these reasons, the postwar capital issue boom had an important role in the rise of the corporate economy in Britain after the First World War.