A natural experiment is used to study exchange rate depreciation and perceived sovereign risk. France suspended coinage of silver in 1876 provoking a significant exogenous depreciation of all silver standard countries versus gold standard currencies like the British pound - the currency in which...

Confederate asset price stabilization policies appear to have increased the velocity of circulation and counterproductively channeled inflationary pressures into other areas of the economy. Three successive monetary reforms encouraged holders of Treasury notes to exchange these notes for bonds...

We analyze GDP estimates for Italy, Portugal, and Spain during the period 1850-1913. The time series analysis indicates that Italy experienced a break in trend growth during the late 1890s while Spain had constant, deterministic growth during this period. Economic growth in Portugal is...

During the Civil War the Arkansas legislature funded their expenditures primarily through interest-bearing warrants and war bonds. After these issues were made legal tender in November 1861, the discount attributed to them disappeared immediately and they began to circulate widely. In mid-1862...

On April 1, 1864 the Confederate Currency Reform Act reduced the money supply in the Eastern Confederacy by one third. The delayed implementation of the reform west of the Mississippi provides a counterfactual view of what may have happened in the east had the reform not been enacted. This...

Instances of interest-bearing currency are relatively rare. The Southern Confederacy issued both interest and non-interest-bearing notes during the Civil War. The two types of notes apparently circulated alongside one another with the interest-bearing currency generally commanding the premium...

This article introduces a new high-frequency time series of Confederate money prices taken from the newspapers of Richmond and leading cities in the Eastern Confederacy. The new grayback series is tested for turning points. The empirical analysis suggests that turning points in the Confederate...

Legal restrictions theory suggests that dominance of non-interest-bearing currency is possible only because legal impediments prevent financial institutions from offering interest-bearing alternatives. A viable interest-bearing medium must be issued in denominations low enough for day-to-day...

Research on information economics and securities markets dating back to Stigler (Journal of Political Economy, 69 (1961), 213-225; Journal of Business, 37 (1964), 117-142) argues that trading will tend to centralize in major market centers such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The NYSE's...