A natural experiment is used to study exchange rate depreciation and perceived sovereign risk. France suspended coinage of silver in 1876 provoking a significant exogenous depreciation of all silver standard countries versus gold standard currencies like the British pound - the currency in which...

Why did policymakers adopt the gold standard? Although previous research has identified ex post effects of gold standard adoption on trade and bond yields, few studies have sought to understand whether these were the actual outcomes of interest to policymakers at the time of adoption. We examine...

Legal restrictions theory suggests that dominance of non-interest-bearing currency is possible only because legal impediments prevent financial institutions from offering interest-bearing alternatives. A viable interest-bearing medium must be issued in denominations low enough for day-to-day...

Research on information economics and securities markets dating back to Stigler (Journal of Political Economy, 69 (1961), 213-225; Journal of Business, 37 (1964), 117-142) argues that trading will tend to centralize in major market centers such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The NYSE's...

This article introduces a new high-frequency time series of Confederate money prices taken from the newspapers of Richmond and leading cities in the Eastern Confederacy. The new grayback series is tested for turning points. The empirical analysis suggests that turning points in the Confederate...

This paper investigates the more than doubling of Confederate cotton bond prices between December 1863 and September 1864, even after critical defeats of Southern armies at Gettysburg and Vicksurg in the summer of 1863. Offsetting adverse war news during this period were movements in the price...

The Confederate States of America floated two small bond issues in Europe during the American Civil War; cotton bonds that traded primarily in England and junk bonds in Amsterdam. The Confederacy serviced the cotton bonds for the duration of the war and defaulted on the junk bond issue....