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A Bond Is Born

Filippo Monteforte
/
AFP/Getty Images

Venice was a financial powerhouse in the twelfth century, but when the Byzantine Empire started imprisoning Venetian merchants, Venice had to strike back. To do that, it needed to raise money. Venetian politicians started a new kind of loan, the "prestiti," so they could borrow money for war. Today on The Indicator, how the the first bond came to be and how it transformed the way governments borrow money.

Music"Morning Start","Offertorium: Ecce apertum est Templum tabernaculi"

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Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.