The U.S. Coinage Act of 1873 eliminated provision for the free coinage of silver. That act cast the die for a gold standard. The conventional view is that "the act of 1873 was a piece of good fortune." This paper indicates that it was the opposite--a mistake that had highly adverse consequences....

Quarterly data for the period from 1961 to 1986 suggest that the real quantity of money (defined as M2) demanded relative to income is positively r elated to the deflated price of equities (Standard and Poor's composi te) three quarters earlier and negatively related to the contemporane ous real...