Books by Rowena Olegario

Tracing credit from colonial times to the present and highlighting its productive role in building national prosperity, Rowena Olegario probes questions that have divided Americans: Who should have access to credit? How should creditors assess creditworthiness? How can borrowers and lenders accommodate to the risks of a credit-dependent economy?

In the growing and dynamic economy of nineteenth-century America, businesses sold vast quantities of goods to one another, mostly on credit. This book explains how business people solved the problem of whom to trust-how they determined who was deserving of credit, and for how much.