The monetary powers embedded in the U.S. Constitution were revolutionary and led to a watershed transformation in the nation's monetary structure. They included determining what monies could be legal tender, who could emit fiat paper money, and who could incorporate banks. How the debate at the...

This paper provides the first comprehensive econometric analysis of the causes of bank distress during the Depression. We assemble bank-level data for virtually all Fed member banks, and combine those data with county-level, state-level, and national-level economic characteristics to capture...

We study financial stability with constraints on central bank intervention. We show that a forced reallocation of liquidity across banks can achieve fewer bank failures than a decentralized market for interbank loans, reflecting a pecuniary externality in the decentralized equilibrium....

This paper begins by developing a framework for price and interest rate determination under suspension of convertibility during the national banking period. The model is applied to interpret unanticipated price level shocks and expected deflation during the period of green back inconvertibility(...

I use denominational structure (the spacing and size of monetary units) to explain how the Continental Congress attempted to manage a successful common currency when sub-national political entities were allowed to have separate currencies and run independent monetary policies. Congress created a...

We introduce FDIF, a measure of Fed communication surprise based on the text of FOMC statements. FDIF measures the difference between text-implied and actual values of key market variables. Positive FDIF of countercyclical variables (e.g., credit spreads) is associated with negative...