IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dlw/wpaper/08-09..html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Continental Dollar: What Happened to It after 1779?

Author

Listed:
  • Farley Grubb

    (Department of Economics,University of Delaware)

Abstract

The U.S. Congress issued paper money called Continental Dollars to finance the American Revolution. The story of the Continental Dollar is familiar to all -- a lot were issued and hyper-inflation ensued. However, the details of this story are less well known. Scholars even disagree over how much was issued -- disagree by over 50 percent. Meaningful monetary analysis of the Continental Dollar cannot proceed given this confusion in the data. Evidence is gathered here to reconcile past estimates and establish the exact amount and time path of Continental Dollars emitted thereby overcoming the entropy that has crept into the historical record.

Suggested Citation

  • Farley Grubb, 2008. "The Continental Dollar: What Happened to It after 1779?," Working Papers 08-09, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:dlw:wpaper:08-09.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13770
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Farley Grubb, 2007. "The Net Worth of the US Federal Government, 1784–1802," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 280-284, May.
    2. Calomiris, Charles W., 1988. "Institutional Failure, Monetary Scarcity, and the Depreciation of the Continental," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(1), pages 47-68, March.
    3. Grubb, Farley, 2008. "The Continental Dollar: How Much Was Really Issued?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 283-291, March.
    4. Garber, Peter M., 1991. "Alexander Hamilton's market-based debt reduction plan," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 79-104, January.
    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. Farley Grubb, 2008. "The Distribution of Congressional Spending During the American Revolution, 1775-1780: The Problem of Geographic Balance," Working Papers 08-21, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    2. Hall, George J. & Sargent, Thomas J., 2014. "Fiscal discriminations in three wars," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 148-166.
    3. Elizabeth Brainerd & Nidhiya Menon, 2013. "Religion and Health in Early Childhood: Evidence from the Indian Subcontinent," Working Papers 65, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.

    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. Hugh Rockoff, 2015. "War and Inflation in the United States from the Revolution to the First Iraq War," Departmental Working Papers 201516, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    2. Farley Grubb, 2011. "The Continental Dollar: Initial Design, Ideal Performance, and the Credibility of Congressional Commitment," NBER Working Papers 17276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Grubb, Farley, 2008. "The Continental Dollar: How Much Was Really Issued?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 283-291, March.
    4. Farley Grubb, 2011. "State Redemption of the Continental Dollar, 1779-1790," NBER Working Papers 17209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Peter L. Rousseau, 2013. "Politics on the road to the U.S. monetary union," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 13-00006, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    6. Bordo, Michael D. & Vegh, Carlos A., 2002. "What if Alexander Hamilton had been Argentinean? A comparison of the early monetary experiences of Argentina and the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 459-494, April.
    7. Ronnie J. Phillips, "undated". "Narrow Banking Reconsidered, The Functional Approach to Financial Reform," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_17, Levy Economics Institute.
    8. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2006. "Money in a Theory of Banking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 30-53, March.
    9. Grubb, Farley, 2004. "The circulating medium of exchange in colonial Pennsylvania, 1729-1775: new estimates of monetary composition, performance, and economic growth," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 329-360, October.
    10. Cole, Harold L & Dow, James & English, William B, 1995. "Default, Settlement, and Signalling: Lending Resumption in a Reputational Model of Sovereign Debt," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(2), pages 365-385, May.
    11. Ronald W. Michener & Robert E. Wright, 2006. "Miscounting Money of Colonial America," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(1), pages 4-44, January.
    12. Farley Grubb, 2010. "US Land Policy: Founding Choices and Outcomes, 1781–1802," NBER Chapters, in: Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, pages 259-289, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Farley Grubb, 2003. "Two Theories of Money Reconciled: The Colonial Puzzle Revisited with New Evidence," Working Papers 03-03, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    14. McCallum, Bennett T, 1992. "Money and Prices in Colonial America: A New Test of Competing Theories," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 143-161, February.
    15. Harwick, Cameron & Caton, James, 2022. "What’s holding back blockchain finance? On the possibility of decentralized autonomous finance," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 420-429.
    16. Peter L. Rousseau, 2010. "Monetary Policy and the Dollar," NBER Chapters, in: Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, pages 121-149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Calomiris, Charles W. & Flandreau, Marc & Laeven, Luc, 2016. "Political foundations of the lender of last resort: A global historical narrative," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    18. Bruce Smith, 1988. "The relationship between money and prices: some historical evidence reconsidered," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 12(Sum), pages 18-32.
    19. Michael Sproul, 1998. "Backed Money, Fiat Money, and the Real Bills Doctrine," UCLA Economics Working Papers 774B, UCLA Department of Economics.
    20. Farley Grubb, 2020. "Colonial New Jersey’s Paper Money, 1709–1775: Why Ronald Michener Insists on Using Uncorrected Data—A Reply," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 17(1), pages 1-71–89, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions
    • N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    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:dlw:wpaper:08-09.. 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: Saul Hoffman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deudeus.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.