This paper explains why the risky notes of banks established during the Free Banking Era (1837–63) were demanded even when relatively safe specie (gold and silver coin) was an alternative. Free bank notes were demanded because they were priced to reflect the expected value of their backing....

The Suffolk Bank in Boston is well known as having been the clearinghouse for virtually all the banknotes that circulated in New England between 1836 and 1858. An examination of 19th century bank balance sheets shows that during and after the U.S. banking Panic of 1837, this private commercial...

The behavior of interest rates under the U.S. National Banking System is puzzling because of the apparent presence of persistent and large unexploited arbitrage opportunities for note issuing banks. Previous attempts to explain interest rate behavior have relied on the cost or the inelasticity...

This study examines the pricing of U.S. state banknotes before 1860 using data on the discounts on these notes as quoted in banknote reporters in New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. The study attempts to determine whether these banknotes were priced consistent with their expected...

A current U.S. policy is to introduce a new style of currency that is harder to counterfeit, but not immediately to withdraw from circulation all of the old-style currency. This policy is analyzed in a random-matching model of money, and its potential to decrease counterfeiting in the long run...

Prior to 1863, state-chartered banks in the United States issued notes - dollar-denominated promises to pay specie to the bearer on demand. Although these notes circulated at par locally, they usually were quoted at a discount outside the local area. These discounts varied by both the location...

Prior to the Civil War several states established bank liability insurance schemes of two basic types. One was an insurance fund, in which member banks paid into a state-run fund that would pay losses of bank creditors. The other was a mutual guarantee system, in which survivor banks were...