Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79) was a remarkable Crown financier in Tudor England. This study begins with Tudor macroeconomic structure and micro evidence regarding England’s foreign debt in the 16th century. Detailed information will be used to illustrate Gresham’s manipulating of foreign exchange and negotiations with major European money lenders, and evaluate his contributions to mitigate Tudor foreign debt problems.
This monograph contains 13 chapters and 7 appendices.Two specific issues are examined and answered. (1) The structure of Tudor revenues and expenditures, to show how serious were the deficits. (2) How Gresham helped the Crown to arrange and defray foreign borrowings.
To save the cost of borrowings and repayments, Gresham asked the Crown several times to allow him to manipulate exchange rates of Pound Sterling in the Bourse of Antwerp. Most Tudor economic historians misinterpreted Gresham’s letters as if he was able to do so. Based the recent available exchange rate statistics, I present the trend of exchange rate of Pound Sterling (1537-68) and argue that Gresham was unlikely to manipulate the foreign exchange market in Antwerp. Gresham was boasting his proposals and it was a fortune that the Crown did not follow his project continuously.
學術著作有:《近代中國的合作經濟運動:1912-1949》(1990,2011)、Adam Smith across Nations: Translations and Receptions ofThe Wealth of Nations(2000, Oxford UP,主編)、《亞當史密斯與嚴復:國富論與中國》(2002,2009)、Braudel’s Historiography Reconsidered(2004)、《梁啟超的經濟面向》(2006,2010)、《邊鎮糧餉:明代中後期的邊防經費與國家財政危 機,1531-1602》(2008,2010)、《王室與巨賈:格雷欣爵士(1519-79)與都鐸王朝的外債籌措》(2015)。