The Berlin stock exchange and the geography of German stock markets in 1913

Multiple stock exchanges have been in operation in Germany since the nineteenth century. We provide new data on the number of listed firms, the market value and industry characteristics for the benchmark year 1913 to understand the geography of stock market listings. We find that large firms tended to be listed on the Berlin stock exchange while the regional stock exchanges were important hosts for small- and medium-sized firms. We show that the geographic distance between the stock exchange and corporate headquarters is negatively related to listing decisions.