Nicolas Dutot (1684–1741) is an important figure for the history of economic thought, as a pioneer in monetary theory and price statistics, and for economic history as a chronicler of John Law’s System. Yet until recently very little about him was known, some of it incorrect. I present...

The French government currently honors a very unusual debt contract: an annuity that was issued in 1738 and currently yields 1.20 Euro per year. I tell the story of this unique debt, which serves as an anecdotal but symbolic summary of French public finances since the 18th century. -- life...

"John Law's System was a radical restructuring of French public finances, carried out from 1716 to 1720. It involved on the one hand a conversion of the existing French public debt into something like government equity, on the other hand the replacement of commodity money with fiat money. For...

"Suppose the nominal money supply could be cut literally overnight by, say, 20%. What would happen to prices, wages, output? The answer can be found in 1720s France, where just such an experiment was carried out, repeatedly. Prices adjusted instantaneously and fully on one market only, that for...

I jointly use daily data on deaths and public transportation ridership in San Francisco in 1918-19 to estimate a model in which agents choose their level of economic activity based on perceived infection risk, modeled as a function of current and lagged infections or deaths. Agents' choices in...

In the 18th century Britain frequently issued lottery loans, selling bonds whose sizewas determined by a draw soon after the sale. The probability distribution was perfectly known ex-ante and highly skewed. After the draw the bonds were identical (except for size) and indistinguishable from...