During the colonial era, the French colonial government in Canada experimented with paper money printed on the back of playing cards. The first experiment lasted from 1685 to 1719. In the first years, there was little inflation in spite of a rapidly expanding stock of playing card money. It is...

"New World Economies is a valuable addition to the body of literature about economic development in eighteenth-century North America, and a much-needed comparative study of the British and French colonies. Egnal presents a cogent explanation for why the staple export thesis has not adequately...