Public or private interests? The investment behaviour of public officials in Antwerp during the early modern period

Indebted cities were a widespread phenomenon during the Ancien Régime. However, some found ways to innovate the management of their municipal debt, whilst others fell prey to over-indebtness or default. In this article we have left the success-stories aside and focussed on the latter. Using early modern Antwerp as a case study, we have disentangled the underlying mechanisms that ultimately lead to over-indebtness and (in some cases) default. Whilst the economic climate and the relationship between city and state have been previously mentioned in the literature, our contribution brings another element to the table, e.g. the social makeup of the rentiers. We showed that the strategic choices made by rent-seeking elites, especially if these were involved in policy making, had a huge impact on the financial wellbeing of cities during the early modern period