Drawing on the variation in financial distress across U.S. states during the Great Depression, this article suggests how bank supervision and regulation affected banking stability during the Great Depression. In response to well-organized interest groups and public concern over the bank failures...

Even after controlling for local economic conditions, differences in state bank supervision and regulation contribute toward explaining the large variation in state bank suspension rates across U.S. counties during the Great Depression. More stringent capital requirements lowered suspension...

The Confederate States of America floated two small bond issues in Europe during the American Civil War; cotton bonds that traded primarily in England and junk bonds in Amsterdam. The Confederacy serviced the cotton bonds for the duration of the war and defaulted on the junk bond issue....

This paper 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...

The Panic of 1907 is an important episode in American financial history because it led, in part, to the creation of the Federal Reserve. Although much has been written about the crisis, little has been said about its underlying causes. This study identifies the San Francisco earthquake and its...

Confederate Treasury notes were convertible into government bonds at par. This provided an imbedded option value for the currency. Confederate interest-rate policy encouraged, and ultimately coerced, holders of Treasury notes to exchange these notes for bonds by imposing deadlines on their...