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Colonial Virginia's legislature introduced an inside paper money into its domestic economy that was, at that time, primarily a barter economy without any government or bank-issued inside paper monies in circulation. I decompose Virginia's paper money into its expected real-asset present value, risk discount and transaction premium. The value of Virginia's paper money was determined primarily by its real-asset present value. The transaction premium was small. Positive risk discounts occurred in years when monetary troubles were suspected, namely worries that the government would not redeem the paper money as promised. Counterfeiting, however, was not one of these worries. The legislature had the tools and used them effectively to mitigate the effects of counterfeiting on the value of its paper money. Colonial Virginia's paper money was not a fiat currency, but a barter asset, with just enough transaction premium to make it the preferred medium of exchange for local transactions. It functioned like a zero-coupon bond and traded below face value due to time-discounting, not depreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an extensive survey of French primary sources and a discussion of the recent literature on fiscal policy in France and Europe during Louis XIV's wars, this article revisits the rationale behind the first experiment with paper money undertaken by finance minister Michel Chamillart, comparing it to other belligerents’ strategies, in particular England's, to adjust their monetary regime to the challenges of funding long wars of attrition. The article shows how concerns about economic activity, coinage and the need to finance the war deficit led to a series of debasements of the French currency, the establishment of a bank in the form of a Caisse des emprunts and the introduction of mint bills, which became legal tender and caused the first experience of fiat money inflation in history. Whereas Chamillart's personal shortcomings have been recently suggested as the cause of Louis XIV's humbling in the War of the Spanish Succession, I argue on the contrary that the introduction of paper money in 1704 was key to the capacity of France to sustain its military effort, but that a succession of military defeats against a more powerful coalition led to inflation. I also argue that the introduction of paper money saved the Caisse des emprunts and its bonds which helped sustain the war effort up until the peace. By situating the use of paper money within the broader question of the exercise of power in the absolute monarchy, this article examines the formation of fiscal policy, paying attention to the ways in which government sought advice from experts. It concludes by calling for further studies on policy- and decision-making under Louis XIV. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, Maryland's non-legal-tender paper money emissions between 1765 and 1775 are reconstructed to determine quantities outstanding and redemption dates, providing a substantial correction to the literature. Over 80 per cent of this paper money's current market value was expected real asset present value and under 20 per cent was liquidity premium. It was primarily a real barter asset and not a fiat currency. The liquidity premium was positively related to the amount of paper money per capita in circulation. This paper money traded below face value due to time-discounting, rather than depreciation. Past scholars have simply confused depreciation with time-discounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I decompose the market value of Colonial New Jersey's paper money into its component parts, namely its real-asset present value and transaction premium. Its market value was predominately determined by its real-asset present value. I also find a small transaction premium that is positively associated with the quantity of paper money in circulation and with the land-bank method of paper money injection. This paper money was not a fiat currency. It traded below face value due to time-discounting not depreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author reconstructs the data on Virginia's paper money regime using forensic accounting techniques. He corrects the existing data on the amounts authorized and outstanding, and reconstructs yearly data on previously unknown aspects of Virginia's paper money regime, including printings, net new emissions, redemptions and removals, denominational structures, expected redemption tax revenues, and specie accumulating in the treasury for paper money redemption. These new data form the foundation for narratives written on the social, economic, and political history of Virginia, as well as for testing models of colonial paper money performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1789 and 1803 the National Debt Office issued unbacked interest bearing notes whereas the Bank of Sweden issued silver backed notes. The massive note issuance by the National Debt Office led to different exchange rates and two units of account. The situation gave rise to an early paper standard theory formulated by Anders Wappengren, a well-read merchant who was strongly influenced by Adam Smith and the French physiocrats. Wappengren had a firm understanding of monetary systems and the adjustment mechanism under floating exchange rates, including such concepts as purchasing power parity and price stickiness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Forensic accounting is used to reconstruct the data on emissions, redemptions, and bills outstanding for colonial New Jersey paper money. These components are further separated into the amounts initially legislated and the amounts actually executed. These data are substantial improvements over what currently exists in the literature. They also provide a more complete and nuanced accounting of colonial New Jersey's paper money regime than what has been done previously for any British North American colony. Enough detail of the forensic accounting exercise is given for scholars to reproduce the data series from the original sources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The Bullionist Controversy in the United Kingdom is one of the first debates about the determination of the price level and the exchange rate under a paper money standard. Despite the importance of the debate in the development of monetary theory, there remains little empirical evidence that uses modern, multivariate time series techniques. The evidence that does exist provides support for the Anti‐Bullionist position. The purpose of this paper is to review the debate and develop a dynamic general equilibrium model that is capable of capturing key features of the nineteenth‐century British financial system. The model is estimated using Bayesian procedures to test the competing hypotheses. The paper provides support for the Bullionist position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Western impressions of the Chinese pre-modern monetary experience might have been excessively colored by Marco Polo’s favorable commentary on the stability of the Mongol polity and its dissemination of paper money. Experiments with unconvertible paper money had ultimately been no more successful in late-imperial China than they were in the early-modern West. By 1430, in fact, the Ming dynasty was forced to abandon the issuance of paper money altogether. The genesis of paper money both in China and it the West had originally emanated from private institutions. However, royally chartered banks of issue were conspicuously absent from the Chinese setting until the late nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the position of the U.S. political group known as the Anti-Federalists concerning Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution and its abrogation of state powers regarding the issuance of paper money and debt relief. According to the article, Anti-Federalists often opposed Section 10 but made few formal objections to Section 10 and proposed no amendments to its significant provisions in the thirteen states that ratified the U.S. Constitution. The article examines paper money laws in the various states, why the Constitution banned state paper money, and the debate over the Constitution's ratification between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

I reconstitute the spending obligations and revenue sources of colonial New Jersey's provincial government for the years 1704 through 1775 from primary sources using forensic accounting techniques. I identify and analyze the methods for raising revenue to meet normal peacetime and emergency wartime expenses. I calculate the provincial tax burdens imposed on New Jersey's citizens. I identify how Britain interfered with New Jersey's fiscal structure. I estimate what the revenues and tax burdens would have been without this interference. New Jersey paid for war expenses by issuing bills of credit, spreading the tax burden of redeeming these bills into the future. New Jersey paid its yearly administrative costs with current property taxes and with current interest earnings from loaning paper money. In the absence of British interference and wars, New Jersey could have driven tax burdens to zero by using interest earnings to pay for all its provincial administrative costs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study offers a historical overview of U.S. paper money before and after its nationalization in 1861, drawing attention to its function as a medium of mass communication. Building upon recent scholarship concerning the social construction of money and national currencies, it is argued that U.S. currency is legitimated through visual strategies of rationalization and mystification, whereby the contractual obligations of the state are merged with the sacred bonds of national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the printing and use of scrip-money during the early twentieth century in isolated areas of the U.S. where mining and forestry where the dominant industries. It is noted that private money such as was printed by lumbering and mining companies would have been common tender and not legal tender. The article concludes by postulating what might have happened if the scrip system had become an intercommunity system and if there had not been laws regarding the private printing of money.

Although high inflation is associated with the spread of paper monies, rapid price increases are well known under the metallic standard from several countries, caused by the debasement of coins. The exact mechanism is still a puzzle. If agents were rational, why did they accept inferior coins at par with better ones? This paper compares five debasement cycles that occurred in Sweden-Finland 1350-1594. During the initial phase of such cycles coins tended to circulate by-tale, while by-weight circulation was most common towards the end of the cycles. A premium on the heavier coins implied that they were not driven out of circulation. The seignorage rate was significant during the initial phases of the cycles, while it decreased when prices and exchange rates adjusted in response to the debasement, prompting a recoinage, when the monetary unit was strengthened. It is this shift from by-tale to by-weight circulation that explains the high inflation rates that could occur before the rise of paper money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses paper money issues in the American colonies from 1720 to 1774. Misinterpretation of the colonial monetary policies; Overview of the political background of British monetary policies in the colonies; Controversy over colonial practices during the period.

Between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries China's monetary system shifted from a multiple currency system including paper notes, bronze coin, and uncoined silver to a unified paper currency system established by the Mongol Yuan dynasty. Consequently, China's long-standing bronze coin standard was replaced by a new money of account denominated in silver. However, silver largely disappeared as a medium of exchange under Yuan rule. Instead, silver units of account were used to denominate paper currency. The monetary policies of the Mongol Yuan state established a silver unit of account that remained the monetary standard throughout China's late imperial era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published during the economic crisis of 1836-37, The French Revolution exploits nineteenth-century anxieties about paper money and the erosion of the gold standard to investigate a historical crisis in political, moral, and economic value. This essay investigates how Carlyle draws on the substitution of paper money and the speculation and inflation it engendered in revolutionary France as part of a larger meditation on the role and efficacy of symbols in a democratic culture. As the essay demonstrates, for Carlyle the inconvertibility of banknote into gold during the Paper Age parallels the inconvertibility of signs into time-honored systems of reference and signals the loss of privileged representations of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article surveys the monetary history of Koryŏ from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. During the first century of the dynasty, Koryŏ was at war with the Liao, prohibited trade with the enemy and pursued a policy of protecting its metal reserves. During the ban on metallic coins, rice and cloth served as commodity monies, ensuring price stability in a phase of sustained growth of the rural economy. A second phase began after the victory over the Liao in 1018. Backed by military strength, the government issued iron, bronze and silver currencies to facilitate international trade. The Koryŏ ‘silver vase’ currency, which circulated for three centuries, partly bridges the ‘black hole’ in East Asian monetary history from the Late Tang to the Ming period. The intrinsic value of the metallic currencies in conjunction with state issuance provided monetary stability. In turn monetary instability characterised the late Koryŏ, when the country came under the influence of the Mongol Yuan. The destabilising effect brought about by the introduction of Yuan paper money demonetarised the economy. By framing monetary history within a wider perspective of struggles for sovereignty and political hegemony, the article allows a better understanding of domestic and regional dynamics in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Traces the evolution of paper money in England. Circulation of fiduciary orders; Carolean paper orders; Promissory notes; Bills of exchange; Emergence of assignability; Earliest checks; Printing of money by the Bank of England.

The article discusses the exact amount of the money issued by the United States Congress for the financing of the American Revolution. During the revolution, Congress released paper money otherwise called Continental dollars to finance its expenditures. Past literatures have claimed the exact amount spent but they left behind unclear and conflicting estimates. The article traces back the transactions that took place from the enactment to disbursement of the dollars. The article presents supporting tables on estimates and cumulative total net emissions of the continental dollars.

The author comments on Woody Holton's essay "Primitive Accumulation," published in this issue of the journal. According to the author, the essay explores the history of U.S. political economy and addresses questions concerning wealth, economic development and class relation. He says Holton was able to show that propertied white men were able to retain land ownership due to voting rights. He points out that the history of colonial paper-money emissions should have been included in Holton's analysis of paper money in 1780s. He also points out the impact of the Revolutionary War on U.S. political economy.

London goldsmith-bankers' development of paper credit-money in the seventeenth century ushered in the era of modern banking. This essay argues that this innovation of paper credit-money by goldsmith-bankers was the institutionalisation of the double-ownership scheme known as trust. This trust scheme was at the centre of the custom or morality that underlay the political struggle between the Crown, landowners, and the bourgeoisie in early modern England, the struggle from which goldsmith-banking and, later, joint-stock banking developed. This double ownership remains a central feature of the present banking system. Also during the financial boom of the late twentieth century, which ended in the present world financial crisis, the trust scheme was used extensively by many financial firms, such as mutual funds, pension funds, and asset-securitisation trusts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Soziale Systeme is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Paper money, graphic satire, and imitation banknotes comprised a vibrant part of visual culture in Britain over the long nineteenth century, collectively shaping belief in paper credit. Artists, entrepreneurs, and politicians competed with each other to assign value to the unfixed sign of paper money and stabilize the social relationships it represented. Satirists seized on the unstable form of paper money as an ideal medium for social criticism and whimsical jokes, while others used the form for advertisement. Based on surviving examples, this essay gives the first history of this virtually unknown genre of prints, imitation banknotes, and demonstrates their complex relationships to the acceptance of paper as a medium fit to carry value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the development of monetary systems in Ukrainian lands from ancient times to current days, researches the evolution of their structural elements, and traces the main rules set by the central bank for economic entities in the sphere of money emission and use. A comprehensive and operational analysis of the functioning of the monetary system of Ukraine in the conditions of economic and political crisis is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]