Between 1797 and 1821, Britain suspended the gold standard in order to finance the Napoleonic Wars. This measure was accompanied by large scale debt accumulation and inflation: After Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the debt to GDP ratio had climbed to 226%; the price level...

We point out that the two and half years of negotiation (1692-1694) between a group of investors and the English government, who led to the establishment of the Bank of England, aimed to guarantee the liquidity of a new public debt and not to establish a bank. We analyze the evolution of the...

The paper looks at the National Bank of Romania’s issue of banknotes from 1880 through 1914, highlighting the developments in the notes’ cover, the channels whereby the central bank put its notes into circulation, as well as the behaviour of the issuing house during episodes of crisis. The...

This article analyzes the stability of bimetallism for countries operating in integrated bullion markets who enact different legal ratios. I articulate a new theoretical framework to demonstrate that two countries can both be bimetallic only if they coordinate their legal ratios. The theoretical...

This study analyses the functioning of the “gold standard” in the Ottoman Empire during the pre-1914 gold standard era, with specific emphasis on the institutions regulating commodity money and fiat money. It explores the extent to which the Ottoman monetary system was an outlier with...

Argues that the examination in the secular change in nominal interest rates is not sufficient to understand the complexities of grain-storage dynamics in Medieval Europe.

This paper deals with the exchange rates between the domestic currencies of Sweden-Finland in 1534-1803. In 1534, the first silver daler coins were minted in Sweden, which existed alongside the main silver coins at a fluctuating exchange rate. In 1624, a copper standard was introduced. However,...

We present a financial history of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) using a new dataset derived from the Bank of England minutes. We argue that the war and the associated actions of the Bank of England led to a transformation of the financial system. Additionally, while there was short-term...

Using newly collected discount rate data for six Swiss cities, we find no evidence of increasing integration during a 30-year period of lightly regulated free banking. We attribute this to two structural issues: banks had incentives to protect their local monopolies, and the inherent instability...

Using newly collected discount rate data for six Swiss cities, we find no evidence of increasing integration during a 30-year period of lightly regulated free banking. We attribute this to two structural issues: banks had incentives to protect their local monopolies, and the inherent instability...