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Working Paper
What Happened to the US Economy During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? A View Through High-Frequency Data
Burns and Mitchell (1946, 109) found a recession of "exceptional brevity and moderate amplitude." I confirm their judgment by examining a variety of high-frequency data. Industrial output fell sharply but rebounded within months. Retail seemed little affected and there is no evidence of increased business failures or stressed financial system. Cross-sectional data from the coal industry documents the short-lived impact of the epidemic on labor supply. The Armistice possibly prolonged the 1918 recession, short as it was, by injecting momentary uncertainty. Interventions to hinder the contagion ...
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. ...
Newsletter
What’s a penny (or a nickel) really worth?
On December 14, 2006, the United States Mint announced new regulations to limit the melting and exportation of pennies and nickels. The goal is to prevent a shortage of small change in circulation. This article looks at the problem in historical context and suggests solutions.
Journal Article
The recession of 1937 - a cautionary tale
This article reviews the competing explanations offered for the recession of 1937, which interrupted the recovery from the Great Depression. One explanation, increases in labor costs due to the New Deal's industrial policies, fails to account for the full extent of the downturn and for the ensuing recovery. In contrast, monetary policy and fiscal policy seem to capture the downturn?although not its precise timing?and the recovery.
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 ...
Report
A model of commodity money, with applications to Gresham's law and the debasement puzzle
We develop a model of commodity money and use it to analyze the following two questions motivated by issues in monetary history: What are the conditions under which Gresham's Law holds? And, what are the mechanics of a debasement (lowering the metallic content of coins)? The model contains light and heavy coins, imperfect information, and prices determined via bilateral bargaining. There are equilibria with neither, both, or only one type of coin in circulation. When both circulate, coins may trade by weight or by tale. We discuss the extent to which Gresham's Law holds in the various cases. ...
Newsletter
The household balance sheet: too much debt?
Journal Article
Dollarization in Argentina
Several countries are seriously considering the abandonment of their currency and its formal replacement with the U.S. dollar. Since 1991, Argentina has backed its currency with 100 percent reserves and successfully pegged it to the dollar. In doing so, it has already grappled with many issues that confront would-be adopters of the dollar. Moving to full-fledged dollarization might offer a solution to recurring crises that are partly driven by expectations that Argentina might abandon its peg.
Newsletter
How Do We Measure Inflation?
One goal of monetary policy is price stability, which requires a measure of prices over time. The gold standard maintained the stability of one price, that of gold. Today, we need to consider a broad array of prices. The Federal Reserve?s policymaking body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), uses the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) deflator as its index of prices. But what is it, and why does the Fed consider this measure the most suitable?
Journal Article
Lessons from the history of money
This article looks at eight centuries of monetary history and asks: What happened and what have we learned? Money evolved from commodity-based to purely fiduciary, and in the trial-and-error process, governments learned some basic truths about price stability and the management of a sound currency.