The role of regional financial markets and competition between stock exchanges: the rise and fall of the Lyon Stock Exchange, 1800-1945.

Summary This thesis studies the role and functioning of regional stock markets, and in particular the Lyon Stock Exchange, during the period 1800-1945. The framework of analysis used corresponds to the literature on competition between stock exchanges. The thesis is structured around five independent chapters or papers. Chapter 1 presents the conditions of the emergence of regional exchanges in their modern form in the mid-nineteenth century, nearly 40 years after the Paris exchange. Chapters 2 and 3 address the first point of the competitive dynamics among stock exchanges in France, i.e., competition over issuers, and provide two measures of financial development: the number of companies listed on each stock market between 1870 and 1913 and the number of IPOs over a shorter period, 1898-1909. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on competition in stock market activity, i.e., orders received by stockbrokers, government-appointed financial intermediaries. While chapter 4 is devoted to the period at the end of the 19th century and in particular to the crash of the Union Générale, chapter 5 focuses on the two world wars. These two chapters propose two measures of stock market volumes.