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Journal Article
Resolving the national bank note paradox
During the 1882_1914 period, U.S. national banks could issue circulating notes backed by specified government securities. Earlier attempts to explain yields on those securities by costs of note issue discovered a paradox: yields were too high. We point out two previously ignored sources of costs: idle notes and note redemptions that were highly variable, thereby exacerbating the problem of managing reserves. We present data on idle notes and estimate, from partial data on redemptions, the uncertainty due to redemptions. We also present a semiannual time series of an upper bound on the average ...
Journal Article
The debasement puzzle: an essay on medieval monetary history
This study establishes several facts about medieval monetary debasements: they were followed by unusually large minting volumes and by increased seigniorage; old and new coins circulated concurrently; and, at least some of the time, coins were valued by weight. These facts constitute a puzzle because debasements provide no additional inducements to bring coins to the mint. On theoretical and empirical grounds, the authors reject explanations based on by-tale circulation, nominal contracts, and sluggish price adjustment. They conclude that debasements pose a challenge to monetary economics. ...
Working Paper
A model of bimetallism
Bimetallism has been the subject of considerable debate: Was it a viable monetary system? Was it a desirable system? In our model, the (exogenous and stochastic) amount of each metal can be split between monetary uses to satisfy a cash-in-advance constraint, and nonmonetary uses in which the stock of uncoined metal yields utility. The ratio of the monies in the cash-in-advance constraint is endogenous. Bimetallism is feasible: we find a continuum of steady states (in the certainty case) indexed by the constant exchange rate of the monies; we also prove existence for a range of fixed exchange ...
Working Paper
Costly banknote issuance and interest rates under the national banking system
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 of note issue. These attempts are not entirely satisfactory. Here we propose a new rationale to solve the puzzle. Inelastic note issuance arises endogenously because the marginal cost of issuing notes is an increasing function of circulation. We build a spatial separation model where some fraction of ...
Report
Inflation, money, and output under alternative monetary standards
Our study examines whether there is a systematic relationship between the monetary standard under which a country operates and the rate of inflation it experiences. It also explores whether there are other properties of inflation, money, and output that differ between economies operating under a commodity standard and economies operating under a fiat standard. The basis for our study is price, money, and output data for 15 countries that have operated under both types of monetary standards. For each of these countries the data cover 80 years, and for most the data cover more than 100 years. ...
Journal Article
In order to form a more perfect monetary union
Why did states agree to a U.S. Constitution that prohibits them from issuing their own money? This article argues that two common answers to this question?a fear of inflation and a desire to control what money qualifies as legal tender?do not fit the facts. The article proposes a better answer: a desire to form a viable monetary union that both eliminates the variability of exchange rates between various forms of money and avoids the seigniorage problem that otherwise occurs in a fixed exchange rate system. Supporting evidence is offered from three periods of U.S. history: the colonial period ...