The Thomas Willing Institute for the Study of Financial Markets, Institutions, and Regulations (TWI, for short) was founded in 2010 with generous funding from the Nef Family Foundation, the Museum of American Finance, and Augustana College. Directed by Dr. Robert E. Wright, the Nef Family Chair of Political Economy at Augustana, TWI aims to increase public understanding of the financial system and its interactions with bureaucrats, businesses, consumers and politicians.

Mission

TWI’s mission is to increase financial history literacy by funding student summer research fellowships, working closely with other non-profit organizations, including the Museum of American Finance and the New Bedford Whaling Museum, to ensure the continued high quality of their educational outreach and financial history research programs, and supporting the director’s public speaking engagements.

Greetings from Thomas Willing

View an animated short video summarizing Willing’s life and his contribution to America’s early financial system in an 8-minute introduction to the life of Thomas Willing.

Those interested in a more in-depth look at Willing can read the following items.

• Wikipedia page on Thomas Willing
• the University of Pennsylvania's biography
• The Antibubble: Thomas Willing and Early American Financial Stability

Why Study Financial History?

Remember how downtrodden you felt in 2008-9 when your father/mother/spouse lost his/her job? When you lost yours? When you had to explain to your kids that Santa Claus must have lost their toys en route from the North Pole? When you defaulted on your mortgage and lost your house, all because financiers and politicians fudged up their jobs?

Recall the anger you felt when almost all the big banks were about to fail, too, but the government stepped in to bail them out, using your money? When you realized that those in power understood even less about the financial crisis than you did but still got to call the shots in their own often bumbling way? When many Americans decided to gamble on inexperienced leaders offering vague promises?

If you don’t want to experience those feelings again, or to subject your children or grandchildren to them, you should study the history of the financial system and its interactions with the government. It’s a long story but not entirely sordid. As the Panic of 2008 showed, the financial system is a crucial component of economic growth: that means American’s jobs and standard of living. But as the crisis also showed, financial markets, institutions, and regulations — like any useful tool — can be turned to evil ends, into weapons of economic mass destruction.

As citizens of the worst nation on earth (besides all the others), Americans need to educate themselves about the financial system’s strengths and weaknesses, about its power to create, or destroy, all those things they hold dear.

That is why you should study financial history.

Summer Research Fellowships

The Thomas Willing Institute (TWI) has awarded four (4) student summer research and writing fellowships of $2,500 each in Summer 2012.

• Sander Kline will investigate the effects of Sputnik, JFK’s moon speech, the Apollo 11 and 13 missions, and cancellation of the Apollo program on U.S. aeronautical and tech stocks.
• Sarah Kohles is interested in the diamond trade in the twentieth century, especially investment in diamonds as an inflation hedge.
• Michael Seeley will track the market for French bonds during Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign exactly two centuries ago.
• Thad Titze will explain that while Greece’s fiscal policies are much maligned today, the ancient Greeks were major monetary and financial innovators.

Next year, two or more awards will be issued, contingent on the availability of funding.

Interested students may propose any project related to financial history or policy, in any country or countries and over any period of time including, but not limited to, the following topics: banking, capital markets, corporate finance, corporate governance, derivatives, foreign exchange markets, the history of financial thought, insurance, interest rates, money markets, mortgage lending, (de)regulation, and securities markets. The project should result in publication in Financial History, the magazine of the Museum of American Finance, or another suitable venue such as the Social Science Research Network.

The deadline for proposals will be Friday, March 15, 2013. Decisions will be made and announced by Friday, March 29. Students interested in the fellowship should apply by contacting Professor Wright.

Previous recipients

• Marissa Knaak and Megan Soe, 2011 Thomas Willing Institute fellows, co-wrote “Female Investment in America from the 18th Cenury to the Great Depression,” which follows the integral role of women in the market economy as consumers, employees, entrepreneurs and investors. The article was featured in the Winter 2012 issue of Financial History, the magazine of the Museum of American Finance.
• Hal Thompson, a 2011 Thomas Willing Institute fellow, wrote “Wall Street in Widescreen,” illustrating how cinema can help define the financial crisis of 2008 for the American public. The article was featured in the Fall 2011 issue of Financial History, the magazine of the Museum of American Finance.

Glossary of Terms and Research Links

• View a glossary of important business, economic, and financial history terms.
• Researchers and students should find these research links of great utility.

Contact the Director

Dr. Robert E. Wright
Nef Family Chair of Political Economy
and Director of the Thomas Willing Institute
605.274.5312
skype: Robert.Eric.Wright
robert.wright@augie.edu