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Harvests and Financial Crises in Gold-Standard America

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  • Christopher Hanes
  • Paul W. Rhode

Abstract

Most American financial crises of the postbellum gold-standard era were caused by fluctuations in the cotton harvest due to exogenous factors such as weather. The transmission channel ran through export revenues and financial markets under the pre-1914 monetary regime. A poor cotton harvest depressed export revenues and reduced international demand for American assets, which depressed American stock prices, drained deposits from money-center banks and precipitated a business-cycle downturn - conditions that bred financial crises. The crises caused by cotton harvests could have been prevented by an American central bank, even under gold-standard constraints.

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  • Christopher Hanes & Paul W. Rhode, 2012. "Harvests and Financial Crises in Gold-Standard America," NBER Working Papers 18616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18616
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    2. Hanes, Christopher & Rhode, Paul W., 2013. "Harvests and Financial Crises in Gold Standard America," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(1), pages 201-246, March.
    3. David le Bris, 2018. "What is a market crash?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(2), pages 480-505, May.
    4. Bazot, Guillaume & Monnet, Eric & Morys, Matthias, 2019. "Taming the gobal financial cycle: Central banks and the sterilization of capital flows in the first era of globalization," IBF Paper Series 03-19, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.
    5. Calomiris, Charles W. & Carlson, Mark, 2017. "Interbank networks in the National Banking Era: Their purpose and their role in the Panic of 1893," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 434-453.
    6. Christopher Hoag, 2019. "Bank Executive Experience in a Financial Crisis," Working Papers 1902, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    7. Christopher Hoag, 2015. "Clearinghouse Loan Certificates as a Lender of Last Resort," Working Papers 1503, Trinity College, Department of Economics, revised Jun 2015.
    8. Hoag, Christopher, 2018. "Clearinghouse loan certificates as a lender of last resort," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 215-229.
    9. Kupiec, Paul H. & Ramirez, Carlos D., 2013. "Bank failures and the cost of systemic risk: Evidence from 1900 to 1930," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 285-307.
    10. José L. Martínes-González, 2015. "Did Climate Change Influence English Agricultural Development? (1645-1740)," Working Papers 0075, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    11. Christopher Hoag, 2019. "Liquidity and Borrowing from a Lender of Last Resort during the Crisis of 1884," Working Papers 1901, Trinity College, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2019.
    12. Carola Frydman & Eric Hilt & Lily Y. Zhou, 2015. "Economic Effects of Runs on Early "Shadow Banks": Trust Companies and the Impact of the Panic of 1907," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(4), pages 902-940.
    13. Monnet, Eric & bazot, guillaume & Morys, Matthias, 2019. "Taming the Global Financial Cycle: Central Banks and the Sterilization of Capital Flows in the First Era of Globalization (1891," CEPR Discussion Papers 13895, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Christopher Hoag, 2019. "Bank Executive Experience with Clearinghouse Loan Certificates," Working Papers 1903, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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