In this paper we present a new method for estimating market integration under a commodity money system such as that which existed in Europe until the demise of the gold standard. The approach is based on the analysis of deviations between exchange rates and parity, which under conditions of a...

Are transaction costs and half-lives between two cities the same in both directions in traditional city-based monetary systems? Market conditions and political circumstances may not justify this assumption; and we provide evidence that it does not hold in the 1825-1885 period in Spain. Moreover,...

When did Germany become economically integrated? Within the framework of a gravity model, based on a new data set of about 40,000 observations on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany over the period 1885 - 1933, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe. There...

This paper examines the questions of whether and how feudal rulers were able to credibly commit to preserving monetary stability, and of which consequences their decisions had for the efficiency of financial markets. The study reveals that princes were usually only able to commit to issuing a...