Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity....

This paper pursues the comparison of economic integration today and pre 1914 for trade as well as finance, primarily for the United States but also with reference to the wider world. We establish the outlines of international integration a century ago and analyze the institutional and...

This paper argues that the key deep underlying fundamental for the growing international imbalances leading to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system between 1971 and 1973 was rising U.S. inflation since 1965. It was driven in turn by expansionary fiscal and monetary policies--the elephant in...

This paper assesses the role of Friedman and Schwartz's "A Monetary History of the United Slates: 1867 to 1960" as a progenitor of research in monetary history. The paper critically surveys the literature on three major themes in the book: monetary disturbances; the domestic monetary framework...