We use daily transactional ledger data from the Bank of England's Archive to test whether and to what extent the Bank of England during the mid-nineteenth century adhered to Walter Bagehot's rule that a central bank in a financial crisis should lend cash freely at a high interest rate in...

This paper constructs a consistent series for the market value of UK government debt over almost 300 years, analysing how monetary and fiscal policy affect the path of the UK price level. Specifically, it examines the interactions between debts, deficits, the monetary base and the price level....

Money is essential to the workings of a modern economy, but its nature has varied substantially over time. This article provides an introduction to what money is today. Money today is a type of IOU, but one that is special because everyone in the economy trusts that it will be accepted by other...