We provide the first econometric study of foreign exchange market intervention for the UK during the sterling crises from 1964-1967. We use daily data on spot and forward dollar/sterling exchange rates and reserve movements which allows a more precise description of the loss of credibility...

Technological change was unskilled-labor-biased during the early Industrial Revolution, but is skill-biased today. This is not embedded in extant unified growth models. We develop a model which can endogenously account for these facts, where factor bias reflects profit-maximizing decisions by...

For two decades, the consensus explanation of the British Industrial Revolution has placed technological change and the supply side at center stage, affording little or no role for demand or overseas trade. Recently, alternative explanations have placed an emphasis on the importance of trade...

Do international trade and finance flow together? In theory, trade and finance can be substitutes or complements, so the matter must be resolved empirically. We study trade and financial flows from the United Kingdom from 1870 to 1913 and the United States in the interwar years. Trade and...

A major question in the literature on the classical gold standard concerns the efficiency of international arbitrage. Authors have examined efficiency by looking at the spread of the gold points, gold point violations, the flow of gold, or by tests of various asset market criteria, including...

Our paper examines Charles Goodhart's work on the history of monetary institutions: central bank operations under the gold standard, their behaviour in relation to the financial system in which they functioned, including their responses to banking crises, and their performance as lenders of last...

This paper investigates the impact historically of aggregate price shocks on financial stability in the United Kingdom. We construct an annual index of U.K. financial conditions for 1790-1999 and use a dynamic probit model to estimate the effect of aggregate price shocks on the index. We find...

We define the Fisherian Golden Rule measure of bond market inflation expectations as the difference between bond rates and trend real GDP growth rates. The concept is based on the Fisherian theory that an increase in longer-term inflation expectations would be reflected in longer-term interest...

In this paper we analyze the operation of the inter-war gold exchange standard to see if the evident credibility of the system conferred on participating central banks the ability to pursue independent monetary policies. To answer this question we econometrically analyze two key parity, or...