This paper provides a summary of the main features of U.S. financial and banking data during the period of the National Banking System (1863–1914). The purpose of the paper is to provide an overview of the stylized facts associated with the era, with an emphasis on those impinging on national...

This is the introduction to a volume which explores the changing role of banks in the financial intermediation process. It accompanies a Liberty Street Blog series. Both discuss the complexity of the credit intermediation chain associated with securitization and note the growing participation of...

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 triggered a staggering increase in demand for U.S. dollars all over the world, a demand that threatened to disrupt the American payments system but was met swiftly and successfully by the Federal Reserve. Earlier in the nation’s history, the system didn’t...

This paper investigates the question of why banks almost always settle payments in cash as opposed to debt. Our model suggests that adverse selection with respect to the quality of bank assets may be the primary motivation underlying this practice. Banks with higher-quality assets prefer not to...

Monetary historians conventionally trace the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to the turbulence of the Panic of 1907. But why did the successful movement for creating a U.S. central bank follow the Panic of 1907 and not any earlier National Banking Era panic? The 1907 panic...