Bibliographie complète

This thesis examines the credit records between 1847 and 1872 of the Montreal branch of the Mercantile Agency, among the most important credit bureaus in 19th century North America. The 19th century saw the acceleration of transatlantic trade. Montreal, located between Great Britain and the United States, was at the crossroads of the economic expansion. In this period, commonly referred to as the transition to capitalism, the legal, commercial and financial institutions of the metropolis were forced to adjust. In the financial sector, the state was compelled to adopt bankruptcy laws to lessen the negative effects of bad debts and to encourage and support the spread of commercial credit. However, because of limited accessibility, and the complexity and costs of the procedure, the laws were unable to fully guarantee the recovery of loans and were deemed unsatisfactory by the business community. The thesis claims that the emergence of credit agencies responded to the needs of the business community to address problems of information asymmetry. These agencies, like the Mercantile Agency, established a type of self-regulation of commercial credit. They provided information on risk to lenders. To a large extent, the information gathered represented the opinion of the Montreal merchant community. The credit offices of the Mercantile Agency used this information to generate rankings of the credit worthiness of merchants. The information was disseminated to the Agency’s network of subscribers. In this fashion, the Agency contributed to the construction of an economy of reputations. The research, which is inspired by contributions to the new history of capitalism, explores the effects of the construction of the economy of reputations on the relationship between lenders and borrowers. I find that the structure of the relationship favored creditor over debtors. The chapters of the thesis describe the role of reputation in the creditor-debtor relationship, the determinants adopted to measure credit worthiness, and the tensions and conflicts that emerged in the economy of reputations.