I review the original Monetary Commission's origins and contribution to the legislative effort that led to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. My immediate purpose is that of identifying that Commission's merits and shortcomings, with the aim of informing the current effort to establish a...

The twenty-first century “patent litigation explosion” is not unprecedented. In fact, the nineteenth century saw an even bigger surge of patent cases. During that era, the most prolific patent enforcers brought hundreds or even thousands of suits, dwarfing the efforts of today's leading...

We examine econometrically the real effects of paper money's introduction into colonial New England over the 1703-1749 period. Departing from earlier analyses that focus primarily on the depreciation of paper money in the region, we show that expansion of the money stock promoted growth in...

Using a novel dataset from the Freedman's Savings Bank, we examine how societal trust impacts policy makers' goals of increased financial participation and economic integration. We find that events that impact trust in political representation and public safety also impact financial...

During the colonial era, the French colonial government in Canada experimented with paper money printed on the back of playing cards. The first experiment lasted from 1685 to 1719. In the first years, there was little inflation in spite of a rapidly expanding stock of playing card money. It is...

Good data on US stock market returns before the advent of the Cowles' (1939) dataset in 1871 have been scarce. Small samples and an inability to observe dividends render current estimates suspect. I report total return for a much larger sample of stocks before 1871 than heretofore seen. I...

Using an extensive high-frequency data set, we investigate the transmission of financial crisis specifically focusing on the Panic of 1907, the final severe panic of the National Banking Era (1863-1913). We trace the transmission of the crisis from New York City trust companies to the New York...

Generally, the historical literature presents the period from 1817 to 1851 in Lower Canada (modern day Québec) as one of negative economic growth. This period also coincides with the rise of free banking in the colony. In this paper we propose to study the effects of free banking on economic...

In the physical world the "identity" of something is taken generally as a given; an apple is an apple; this apple is this apple. When dealing with planetary structure and extension into space, however, the problem of the planet's "identity" in the surrounding cosmos is writ large. What does a...

This set of three volumes argues that the mind – human consciousness – may be measured by considering mathematically the aggregate of that consciousness, i.e. social history. From this beginning theme of discussion three questions must arise. 1. How might this measurement be made? 2. Of what...