Modern Day Drifter

I can't remember the source of the quote, but years ago political mercenary James "Ragin' Cajun" Carville said that if he were to be reincarnated, he would want to come back as the US bond market because the ups and downs of the US bond market often influence political outcomes.  Now, it could be that Carville got the causality wrong and the truth is that political outcomes and events influence bond markets.  (No way.)  In fact, that story is much more likely.  Don't believe me?  Then here's a question: have you ever wanted a specific numerical probability of the Confederacy winning the US Civil War?  Well, thanks to an analysis of the bond market in Amersterdam during the Civil War, now you can have one.  It seems that the South's fading battlefield success greatly affected the market for Confederate bonds in Amsterdam.  And based on the willingness of investors to buy those bonds over the course of the war, the authors ferret out the odds that European bond traders gave to the Confederacy.  The sharp drop in bond prices after the Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg is solid evidence of how political events affect bond markets.  And it's just an interesting paper to boot.