IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfr/banfra/525.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Fiscal Policy Affects the Price Level: Britain’s First Experience with Paper Money

Author

Listed:
  • P.Antipa

Abstract

Between 1797 and 1821, Britain suspended the gold standard in order to finance the Napoleonic Wars. This measure was accompanied by large scale debt accumulation and inflation: After Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the debt to GDP ratio had climbed to 226%; the price level exceeded its 1797 level by 22.3%. Under these circumstances and given that institutional settings allowed excluding the possibility of strategic default, I will show that expectations of how debt would be stabilized in the future shaped the observed evolution of the price level. Thus, my contribution establishes the importance of fiscal determinants of the price level.

Suggested Citation

  • P.Antipa, 2014. "How Fiscal Policy Affects the Price Level: Britain’s First Experience with Paper Money," Working papers 525, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/working-paper_525_2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 1982. "The 1807–1809 Embargo Against Great Britain," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 291-308, June.
    2. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1984. "Why Was British Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 687-712, September.
    3. Waldenström, Daniel & Frey, Bruno S., 2008. "Did nordic countries recognize the gathering storm of World War II? Evidence from the bond markets," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 107-126, April.
    4. Kim Oosterlinck & Loredana Ureche-Rangau & Jacques-Marie Vaslin, 2013. "Waterloo: a Godsend for French Public Finances?," Working Papers 0041, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    5. Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    7. Thomas J. Sargent & Neil Wallace, 1984. "Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Brian Griffiths & Geoffrey E. Wood (ed.), Monetarism in the United Kingdom, pages 15-41, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Bordo, Michael D & Redish, Angela, 1993. "Maximizing Seignorage Revenue during Temporary Suspensions of Convertibility: A Note," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 157-168, January.
    9. Oosterlinck, Kim, 2003. "The bond market and the legitimacy of Vichy France," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 326-344, July.
    10. Sims, Christopher A, 1994. "A Simple Model for Study of the Determination of the Price Level and the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(3), pages 381-399.
    11. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2014. "Dormant Shocks and Fiscal Virtue," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-46.
    12. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1987. "Temporal aggregation and structural inference in macroeconomics," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 63-130, January.
    13. Jagjit S. Chadha & Elisa Newby, 2013. "’Midas, transmuting all, into paper’: the Bank of England and the Banque de France during the Napoleonic Wars," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1330, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    14. Webb, Steven B., 1986. "Fiscal News and Inflationary Expectations in Germany after World War I," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 769-794, September.
    15. Temin, Peter & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2005. "Credit rationing and crowding out during the industrial revolution: evidence from Hoare's Bank, 1702-1862," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 325-348, July.
    16. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    17. Bordo Michael D. & Kydland Finn E., 1995. "The Gold Standard As a Rule: An Essay in Exploration," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 423-464, October.
    18. Kim Oosterlinck, 2010. "Reparations," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/142711, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    19. Sargent, Thomas J & Velde, Francois R, 1995. "Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 474-518, June.
    20. Frey, Bruno S. & Kucher, Marcel, 2000. "History as Reflected in Capital Markets: The Case of World War II," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 468-496, June.
    21. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    22. Bi, Huixin, 2012. "Sovereign default risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 389-410.
    23. Grossman, Herschel I & Van Huyck, John B, 1988. "Sovereign Debt as a Contingent Claim: Excusable Default, Repudiation, and Reputation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1088-1097, December.
    24. Trabandt, Mathias & Uhlig, Harald, 2011. "The Laffer curve revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 305-327.
    25. Sussman, Nathan & Yafeh, Yishay, 2006. "Institutional Reforms, Financial Development and Sovereign Debt: Britain 1690–1790," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 906-935, December.
    26. Newby, Elisa, 2012. "The suspension of the gold standard as sustainable monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1498-1519.
    27. Allan Meltzer & Saranna Robinson, 1989. "Stability Under the Gold Standard in Practice," NBER Chapters, in: Money, History, and International Finance: Essays in Honor of Anna J. Schwartz, pages 163-202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Woodford, Michael, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 669-728, August.
    29. Heim, Carol E. & Mirowski, Philip, 1987. "Interest Rates and Crowding-Out During Britain's Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 117-139, March.
    30. White, Eugene N., 2001. "Making the French pay: The costs and consequences of the Napoleonic reparations," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 337-365, December.
    31. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    32. Voth, Joachim, 2005. "Credit Rationing and Crowding Out During the Industrial Revolution," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4qw3v8q6, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    33. Barsky, Robert B & Summers, Lawrence H, 1988. "Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 528-550, June.
    34. Stephen Broadberry & Bruce Campbell & Alexander Klein & Mark Overton & Bas van Leeuwen, 2012. "British Economic Growth, 1270-1870: an output-based approach," Studies in Economics 1203, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    35. Vincent Bignon & Marc Flandreau, 2014. "The Price of Media Capture and the Debasement of the French Newspaper Industry during the Interwar," Post-Print hal-01410619, HAL.
    36. Bignon, Vincent & Flandreau, Marc, 2014. "The Price of Media Capture and the Debasement of the French Newspaper Industry During the Interwar," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 799-830, September.
    37. Chamley, Christophe, 2011. "Interest Reductions in the Politico-Financial Nexus of Eighteenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 555-589, September.
    38. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    39. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2013_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    40. Willard, Kristen L & Guinnane, Timothy W & Rosen, Harvey S, 1996. "Turning Points in the Civil War: Views from the Greenback Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 1001-1018, September.
    41. Bordo, Michael D. & White, Eugene N., 1991. "A Tale of Two Currencies: British and French Finance During the Napoleonic Wars," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 303-316, June.
    42. Redish, Angela, 1990. "The Evolution of the Gold Standard in England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 789-805, December.
    43. Bordo, Michael D. & Schwartz, Anna J., 1981. "Money and prices in the 19th century: Was Thomas Tooke right?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 97-127, April.
    44. Calomiris, Charles W, 1994. "Price and Exchange Rate Determination during the Greenback Suspension," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(2), pages 344-344, April.
    45. Stasavage, David, 2007. "Partisan politics and public debt: The importance of the ‘Whig Supremacy’ for Britain's financial revolution," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 123-153, April.
    46. Ritschl, Albrecht, 1996. "Sustainability of High Public Debt: What the Historical Record Shows," CEPR Discussion Papers 1357, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    47. Sims, Christopher A, 1971. "Discrete Approximations to Continuous Time Distributed Lags in Econometrics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(3), pages 545-563, May.
    48. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    49. David Laidler, 2000. "Highlights of the Bullionist Controversy," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 20002, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. P. Antipa & C. Chamley, 2017. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy in England during the French Wars (1793-1821)," Working papers 627, Banque de France.
    2. William Roberds, 2016. "Review of Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism by Christine Desan," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(3), pages 906-921, September.
    3. Pamfili Antipa & Christophe Chamley, 2019. "Regimes of Fiscal and Monetary Policy in England during the French Wars (1793-1821)," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-327, Boston University - Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antipa, P., 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability and the Value of Money: Lessons from the British Paper Pound, 1797-1821," Working papers 466, Banque de France.
    2. Kim Oosterlinck & Loredana Ureche-Rangau & Jacques-Marie Vaslin, 2013. "Waterloo: a Godsend for French Public Finances?," Working Papers 0041, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    3. P. Antipa & C. Chamley, 2017. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy in England during the French Wars (1793-1821)," Working papers 627, Banque de France.
    4. Patrick K. O’Brien & Nuno Palma, 2019. "Danger To The Old Lady Of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act And The Regime Shift To Paper Money, 1797-18211," Working Papers 0082, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    5. Newby, Elisa, 2012. "The suspension of the gold standard as sustainable monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1498-1519.
    6. Pamfili Antipa & Christophe Chamley, 2019. "Regimes of Fiscal and Monetary Policy in England during the French Wars (1793-1821)," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-327, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    7. Cutsinger, Bryan P. & Rouanet, Louis & Ingber, Joshua S., 2023. "Assignats or death: The politics and dynamics of hyperinflation in revolutionary France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Michael D. Bordo & Finn E. Kydland, 1990. "The Gold Standard as a Rule," NBER Working Papers 3367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bruno S. Frey & Daniel Waldenstr�m, 2007. "Using Financial Markets to Analyze History: The Case of the Second World War," IEW - Working Papers 335, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    10. Patrick K. O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2023. "Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694–1844," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 305-329, February.
    11. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Lukas A. Schmid, 2021. "Public perceptions and bond markets during the Great War: the case of a neutral country," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 537-561, March.
    12. Leeper, E.M. & Leith, C., 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary–Fiscal Phenomenon," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2305-2415, Elsevier.
    13. Emilio Congregado & Carmen Díaz-Roldán & Vicente Esteve, 2023. "Deficit sustainability and fiscal theory of price level: the case of Italy, 1861–2020," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 50(3), pages 755-782, August.
    14. Monnet, Eric, 2019. "Interest rates," CEPR Discussion Papers 13896, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Antipa, P., 2015. "How fiscal policy affects the price level: lessons from a not so distant past," Rue de la Banque, Banque de France, issue 13, November..
    16. Daniel, Betty C. & Shiamptanis, Christos, 2012. "Fiscal risk in a monetary union," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1289-1309.
    17. Patrick K O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2020. "Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797–1821," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 24(2), pages 390-426.
    18. Margaret M. Jacobson & Eric M. Leeper & Bruce Preston, 2019. "Recovery of 1933," NBER Working Papers 25629, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2017. "Escaping the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1030-1058, April.
    20. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker, 2012. "Perceptions and Misperceptions of Fiscal Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 255-299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Debt monetization; sovereign debt; inflation; structural breaks.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.