Michael D. Bordo has helped to define the modern field of monetary history, drawing from it important policy lessons for current practitioners. For his seventieth year, we survey his contributions to our understanding of the Great Depression, money and the economy in historical perspective,...

One of the most sustained uses of economic warfare by the United States, at least judged by the variety of means used and the issue at stake, occurred in Spain and Portugal during WWII. We provide an overview of this episode by weaving together findings from the secondary literature and from new...

A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960 published in 1963 was written as part of an extensive NBER research project on Money and Business Cycles started in the 1950s. The project resulted in three more books and many important articles. A Monetary History was designed to provide...

O.M.W. Sprague was America's leading expert on financial crises when America was debating establishing the Federal Reserve. His History of Crises under the National Banking Act is one of the most enduring legacies of the National Monetary Commission; a still frequently cited classic. Since the...

Adam Smith advocated laissez faire for most sectors of the economy, but he believed that banking and finance required several forms of regulation including usury laws and the prohibition of small-denomination bank notes. Smith's support for banking regulation appears to have been a response to...

The United States is often taken to be the exemplar of the benefits of a monetary union. Since 1788 Americans, with the exception of the Civil War years, have been able to buy and sell goods, travel, and invest within a vast area without ever having to be concerned about changes in exchange...

According to the standard accounts of the mobilization of resources in the United States during WWII, things went badly in the beginning because the agencies in charge were given insufficient authority and were mismanaged. But then in 1943 the story continues, the War Production Board installed...

This paper examines the U.S. Economy in World War II. It argues that the mobilization must be viewed as a rapidly evolving historical process rather than, as is often the case, a single differentiated event. For example, the employment of unemployed resources, a factor often cited to explain the...

The great surge in munitions production in World War II, which reached its peak in 1943, was produced by a building boom launched in 1941 and 1942. Resources were drawn rapidly to war production centers by financial incentives and other personal and corporate motives such as patriotism. This...

The great surge in munitions production in World War II, which reached its peak in 1943, was produced by a building boom launched in 1941 and 1942. Resources were drawn rapidly to war production centers by financial incentives and other personal and corporate motives such as patriotism. This...