Books by Robert E. Wright

Drawing on legal and economic history, Robert E. Wright traces the development of corporate institutions in America, connecting today's financial failures to weakened internal corporate regulation.

A history of The Guardian Life Insurance company.

This ground-breaking book adds an economic angle to a traditionally moral argument, demonstrating that slavery has never promoted economic growth or development, neither today nor in the past.

A lively history of one of America's oldest publishing houses, published in conjunction with Wiley's bicentennial Founded in New York City when Thomas Jefferson was president, Wiley has been a significant player in the publishing industry for two centuries.

Recounts the of Chestnut Street and its forgotten role in the birth of American finance. It reveals how Philadelphia played a role in the financing of the American Revolution. This book will appeal to those interested in the history of the United States and the origins of its unrivaled economy.

This text uses modern financial theories to look at old problems in early American republic historiography from new perspectives. Concepts such as information asymmetry, portfolio choice and principal-agent dilemmas open up scholarly vistas.

Robert Wright argues that the ultimate causes of American economic development and transformation into a modern society can be reduced to the causes of American commercial banking. Wright analyzes why American banking arose when, and with the particular characteristics, it did.