There are two main forms of government in U.S. cities: council-manager and mayor-council. This paper develops a theory of fiscal policy determination under these two forms. The theory predicts that expected public spending will be lower under mayor-council, but that either form of government...

Resources to fight the War for Independence from Great Britain (1775-1783) were to be provided to the U.S. Congress by the individual states based on each state's population share in the united colonies. Congressional spending, however, largely flowed to where the theater of war was located....

Congress financed the American Revolution by issuing paper Continental Dollars. The story of the Continental Dollar is familiar to all -- a lot were issued and hyper-inflation ensued. Emissions were permanently discontinued in 1779. Thereafter, they became worthless and were forgotten. They had...

The U.S. Congress issued paper money called Continental Dollars to finance the American Revolution. The story of the Continental Dollar is familiar to all -- a lot were issued and hyper-inflation ensued. However, the details of this story are less well known. Scholars even disagree over how much...

This paper presents a dynamic political economy theory of public spending, taxation and debt. Policy choices are made by a legislature consisting of representatives elected by geographically-defined districts. The legislature can raise revenues via a distortionary income tax and by borrowing....

The spending obligations and revenue sources of colonial New Jersey's provincial government for the years 1704 through 1775 are reconstituted using forensic accounting techniques from primary sources. Such has not been done previously for any British North American colony. These data are used to...