The Dutch bank florin was the dominant currency in Europe during much of the 17th and 18th centuries. The florin, a fiat money, was managed by an early central bank, the Bank of Amsterdam. Using a new reconstruction of the Bank of Amsterdam's balance sheet, we analyze the florin's loss of...

In medieval Europe, old coins were frequently declared invalid and exchanged for new ones at fixed rates and dates. Here, the question of whether and when such re-coinage was applied in medieval Sweden is analyzed against the historical record. A theory of how short-lived coinage systems work is...