Designing a national currency: antebellum payment networks and the structure of the national banking system

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott A. Redenius
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial History ◽  
Cash Payment ◽  
The Us ◽  
International Transactions ◽  
National Banking System ◽  
Geographical Scope

As reflected in the April 2006 issue of the Financial History Review, monetary historians remain divided over the central features of the US monetary union and their contribution to US economic development. In that issue – which focused on the monetary union formed by the Constitution and early federal monetary legislation – Ronald Michener and Robert E. Wright focused on the creation of a uniform unit of account defined in terms of specie. The establishment of a uniform unit of account ‘simplified domestic and international transactions’ compared with the colonial period when ‘[e]conomic calculations across regions were complicated by the fact that people had to reckon with different units of account, without the aid of electronic calculators’. By contrast, Richard Sylla emphasised the role the Bank of the United States played in reducing the costs and risks of clearing and settling interregional payments. An institution, like the Bank, that operated on a national scale was particularly important in the United States because of the limited geographical scope of state bank operations. The Bank's notes and deposits became a truly national monetary standard, and the Bank helped to maintain the value of state bank notes, the principal means of cash payment in the antebellum economy, by enforcing par redemption.

scholarly journals The United States: The First Formalization of Banking Supervision

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-41
Author(s):  
Eiji Hotori ◽  
Mikael Wendschlag ◽  
Thibaud Giddey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Banking System ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Banking Supervision ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
National Banking System

AbstractThis chapter examines the formalization of banking supervision in the United States (US), focusing on the federal level. During the “free banking era” from the late 1830s to 1864, several state governments created banking supervisory systems at the state level. Triggered by the fiscal needs of the Civil War, as well as the demand for a national currency, the US became the first country to introduce uniform nationwide banking supervision with the creation of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the national banking system. The main purpose of the OCC was to ensure that the national banks did not violate the regulations related to the new currency, the US dollar. From a historical perspective, the rapid social and economic development of the US from the 1850s provided the background for this institutional change. Although the US case demonstrates that financial crises have not always driven the formalization of banking supervision, the crises of 1907 and the Great Depression served to further strengthen the formalization of banking supervision by prompting the introduction of multi-agency banking supervision in the US.

The Advent of a New Banking System in the US

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-46
Author(s):  
João Rafael Cunha
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Financial System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Deregulation ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Regulatory Changes ◽  
The Us

The 1980s was one of the most eventful and consequential decades in the development of the US financial system. During this decade, the regulatory framework established in response to the Great Depression started to be dismantled. These regulatory changes were a key driving force behind the transformation of the banking sector. Moreover, the end of the decade saw the most serious banking crisis since the Great Depression. This pattern of deregulation and crises, which started in the 1980s, has continued until the present. Thus, it is worth study this period in greater detail and the consequences it has had for the US banking and financial system. The chapter argues that the deregulatory process that started in the 1980s in the banking industry in the United States has changed the profile of this sector. Between the Great Depression and the 1980s, the banking sector in the United States was a stable, yet not competitive sector. The financial deregulation of the 1980s changed this sector to a competitive, yet unstable one. This deregulatory process occurred mostly as a response to the economic conditions of the 1970s.

scholarly journals Integration in banking efficiency: a comparative analysis of the European Union, the Eurozone, and the United States banks

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitra Loukia Kolia ◽  
Simeon Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Banking Efficiency ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Savings Banks ◽  
The Us ◽  
Bootstrap Dea

PurposeThis paper investigates the development of efficiency and the progress of banking integration in the European Union by checking for convergence among banks of European and Eurozone countries as well as contrasting the results with those of United States banks.Design/methodology/approachInitially, we employ the two-stage semi-parametric double bootstrap DEA method, which absorbs the effects of possible integration barriers in the measurement of efficiency. Afterwards, we apply a panel data model, in order to investigate the process of banking integration by testing for convergence and for convergent clusters in banking efficiency.FindingsOur main findings show that the bank efficiency of the US is considerably higher than that of the Eurozone and the European Union. Although there is no evidence of convergence across the banking groups, our results indicate the presence of club convergence. We also conclude that the US banking system is closer to convergence than the Eurozone and the European Union banks. Nevertheless, this outcome is subject to change in the future due to the fact that Eurozone and European Union banks' speed of convergence is higher than that of US banks.Originality/valueOur survey is unique in trying to check for convergence while controlling for country-specific and bank-specific factors that affect the efficiency of European and Eurozone banks. Moreover, recent literature does not compare the convergence of efficiency of Eurozone, European and US banking. Finally, in our paper special consideration was given to the comparison of commercial, cooperative and savings banks, as subsets of our banking groups.

The transition to a monetary union in the United States, 1787–1795

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD SYLLA
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Debt ◽  
Us States ◽  
Fiat Money ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Dollar

A convertible US-dollar monetary union was the least controversial component of the US financial revolution of the early 1790s. Although the fiat paper currencies of the colonies before 1776 sometimes worked reasonably well, the founders had good reasons for the constitutional ban on their continuance by US states. The ban, a surrender of states' sovereignty over money, at the time proved to be relatively uncontroversial for two reasons. One is that the financial revolution lightened the fiscal burdens of states by assuming their debts and making them part of the national debt. The other is that states quickly learned that chartering banks could accomplish virtually all of the legitimate purposes of state fiat money issues, and possessed additional economic and political advantages.

Continental Divide: The Canadian Banking and Currency Laws of 1871 in the Mirror of the United States

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bank Failures ◽  
Financial History ◽  
Global Competitiveness ◽  
Continental Divide ◽  
The World ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Canadian Banking

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, international observers praised the stability of Canada's banks. When financial institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom collapsed, Canada did not experience any bank failures. The World Economic Forum'sGlobal Competitiveness Reportrated Canada's banking system as the most sound in the world. Historically, bank failures have been quite rare in Canada. Some authors argue that the stabilizing features of Canada's financial system were established in the first five years after the creation of the Canadian nation-state in 1867. This paper will examine the making of the Canadian banking law in 1871, an event widely regarded as a crucial turning point in Canadian financial history.

US financial flows are as important to growth as trade

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Current Account ◽  
Trade Deficit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Financial Flows ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
International Transactions

Subject Exploring the US current account beyond goods trade. Significance The US administration is focusing on the goods trade deficit to measure how well the country is doing in international transactions and to determine foreign economic policy. However, this ignores the many other transactions that cross the nation’s borders. For example, the United States is the world’s largest exporter of services. Moreover, trade is just one part of the current account, which also includes investment income and labour compensation. Financial flows are also important, dominating advanced countries international transactions since the 1980s and driving US exchange rates, trade balances and national savings. Impacts A permanently higher dollar due to the desire of investors to buy US assets will keep the US goods balance in deficit despite trade policy. The US economy is services-driven -- trade in services will grow as a share of US international transactions. An undue focus on manufacturing and goods trade places the US economy at risk of higher costs and slower productivity gains and GDP growth. To meet and diversify demand to invest in the United States, new safe assets including infrastructure bonds may emerge to fund projects.

scholarly journals Jackson, the Bank War, and the Legacy of the Second Bank of the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 501-507
Author(s):  
Peter L. Rousseau
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regulatory Structure ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Financial Failure ◽  
Government Documents ◽  
National Banking System

President Jackson vetoed the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States on July 10, 1832. I describe events leading to the veto and through the bank's dissolution in 1836 using private correspondence and official government documents. These sources reveal a political process through which charges against the bank took hold, accomplices and backup plans were lined up, and the bank was ultimately destroyed with the assistance of chartered banks in New York City. Although the aggressive means by which the bank was dismantled led to a system-wide financial failure and recession in the short term, the long-run outcome was likely a wider diffusion of banking services and a more efficient allocation of capital. The Federal Reserve benefited from applying a more rigorous regulatory structure onto the grid that the populists, free bankers, and National Banking System established.

Banking and Monetary Policy in American Economic History up to the Formation of the Federal Reserve

2018 ◽  
pp. 257-276
Author(s):  
Peter Rousseau
Keyword(s):  
Federal Reserve ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Banking ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Money Creation ◽  
Private Banking ◽  
National Banking System

The US economy developed from an agricultural one mired in debt to an engine of growth between 1790 and 1913. The nation’s bourgeoning financial system was at the heart of this transformation. Growing from three banks in 1790 to more than 22,000 in 1913, the United States became the worldwide leader in private banking. This path, however, was not always smooth, and experiments with various forms of money creation and regulation subjected the nation to periodic panics. Despite a number of missteps, the approach led to financial development and monetary stability. We review this history and key research that defines the literature. Topics include early central banking, free banking, the National Banking System, and the founding of the Federal Reserve. We also offer a guide to areas that now generate considerable research interest, including finance and growth, the roles of banks and other intermediaries, crises, and the rise of deposits.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

‘To see oursels as ithers see us’: Reflections on Scottish Independence from the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euan Hague ◽  
Alan Mackie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Scottish Diaspora

The United States media have given rather little attention to the question of the Scottish referendum despite important economic, political and military links between the US and the UK/Scotland. For some in the US a ‘no’ vote would be greeted with relief given these ties: for others, a ‘yes’ vote would be acclaimed as an underdog escaping England's imperium, a narrative clearly echoing America's own founding story. This article explores commentary in the US press and media as well as reporting evidence from on-going interviews with the Scottish diaspora in the US. It concludes that there is as complex a picture of the 2014 referendum in the United States as there is in Scotland.

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