A hitelszűke évei
The Years of Credit Shortage

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at correcting one of the claims from a previous study of mine on the credit conditions in Pest and Buda. At that time, the analysis of the so called intabulation (or mortgage) records from the years 1810, 1830 and 1850 showed that in 1830 there was a notable decrease in credit supply and the composition of lenders seemed different from what we saw in the other two cross sections, while literature had previously dated this turning point to the 1810s and 1820s. Accordingly, further research focused on examining whether there were other economic processes to substantiate this phenomenon. But neither the dynamics of property sales, auctions, local taxes and salaries, nor the purchase reports from the year could justify the conclusions drawn from the mortgage records of 1830. On the other hand, mortgage records from the years 1825, 1835 and 1840, and especially the separation of loans made in the studied year from previous loans, showed that in the base year of 1820 previously granted loans were instrumental in raising the number and value of intabulated loans. The total value of loans made in the year of intabulation was the lowest in 1825, while in 1830 it started to show signs of slow recovery. Comparing the loans made by creditors in Pest to those made by the National Bank of Austria in 1820, we can observe that while the nadir came in 1825 in Pest, the National Bank hit the lowest point in 1830, and it was only during the years between 1835 and 1840 when both experienced the next steep rise.

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