A Healthy UK Stock Market Demands Economic Growth
Lower taxes and streamlined policies are no substitute for a healthy, expanding economy.
Manchester, in 1887, when it had a thriving regional stock market (and lots of horse-drawn carriages).
Photographer: Hulton Archive/Hulton ArchiveNot that long ago, there were regional stock markets all over the UK. The London bourse opened in the 1690s, but by the mid-1800s there were exchanges in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen,Dundee and another 12 English towns and cities. The bigger ones came with hundreds of listings – 275 in Manchester in 1887, for example, and 236 in Liverpool in 1880.
But by the 1970s it was all but over for most of the UK’s regional markets. Listings collapsed and liquidity vanished as the center of economic gravity moved south. By the mid-1980s, even the Birmingham exchange was shuttered.