IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3645.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Enforceability of Private Money Contracts, Market Efficiency, and Technological Change

Author

Listed:
  • Gary Gorton

Abstract

The period prior to the U.S. civil War saw the introduction and rapid diffusion of the railroad. It was also the Free Banking Era (1838-1863) during which some states allowed relatively free entry into banking. Banks in all states issued distinct private monies, called bank notes, which circulated at discounts from face value in secondary markets at locations away from the issuing bank. This paper proposes a pricing model for bank notes, and then, using a newly discovered data set of monthly bank note prices for all banks in North America, studies the secondary market for privately issued bank notes during the American Free Banking Era, 1838-1859. To test the model, the durations and costs of trips from Philadelphia to other locations are constructed from pre-Civil War travelers' guides in order to measure improvements resulting from the diffusion of the railroad during this period. The results suggest that the note market accurately priced risk. Systematic wildcat banking was not possible. The transportation costs of note redemption explain only part of bank note discount variation. Bank default risk was differentially priced and such risk premia varied cyclically.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Gorton, 1991. "The Enforceability of Private Money Contracts, Market Efficiency, and Technological Change," NBER Working Papers 3645, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3645
    Note: ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3645.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gorton, Gary & Santomero, Anthony M, 1990. "Market Discipline and Bank Subordinated Debt," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(1), pages 119-128, February.
    2. King, Robert G., 1983. "On the economics of private money," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 127-158.
    3. Charles W. Calomiris, 1989. "Deposit insurance: lessons from the record," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 13(May), pages 10-30.
    4. Ramaswamy, Krishna & Sundaresan, Suresh M., 1986. "The valuation of floating-rate instruments : Theory and evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 251-272, December.
    5. Thomas Weiss, 1989. "Economic Growth Before 1860: Revised Conjectures," NBER Historical Working Papers 0007, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Klein, Benjamin, 1974. "The Competitive Supply of Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 6(4), pages 423-453, November.
    7. Geske, Robert, 1977. "The Valuation of Corporate Liabilities as Compound Options," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 541-552, November.
    8. Louis Bernard Schmidt, 1939. "Internal Commerce and the Development of National Economy before 1860," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(6), pages 798-798.
    9. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    10. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:2:p:345-73 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1980. "Equilibrium in a Pure Currency Economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(2), pages 203-220, April.
    12. Kahn, James A, 1985. "Another Look at Free Banking in the United States [New Evidence on the Free Banking Era]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 881-885, September.
    13. repec:ucp:jpolec:v:4:y:1896:p:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Lindstrom, Diane L., 1975. "Demand, Markets, and Eastern Economic Development: Philadelphia, 1815–184," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 271-273, March.
    15. R. M. Breckenridge, 1899. "The Comptroller's Objections to Currency Reform," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(2), pages 253-253.
    16. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    17. Latane, Henry A & Rendleman, Richard J, Jr, 1976. "Standard Deviations of Stock Price Ratios Implied in Option Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 369-381, May.
    18. Economopoulos, Andrew J, 1988. "Illinois Free Banking Experience," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 20(2), pages 249-264, May.
    19. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1987. "Has Government Any Role in Money?," NBER Chapters, in: Money in Historical Perspective, pages 289-314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Schmalensee, Richard & Trippi, Robert R, 1978. "Common Stock Volatility Expectations Implied by Option Premia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(1), pages 129-147, March.
    21. William F. Harding, 1895. "The State Bank of Indiana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-1.
    22. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    23. Svensson, Lars E O, 1985. "Money and Asset Prices in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 919-944, October.
    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. Shambaugh, Jay C., 2006. "An experiment with multiple currencies: the American monetary system from 1838-60," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 609-645, October.

    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. Gorton, Gary, 1999. "Pricing free bank notes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 33-64, August.
    2. Gorton, Gary, 1996. "Reputation Formation in Early Bank Note Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 346-397, April.
    3. Gary Gorton, 1993. "Reputation Formation in Early Bank Debt Markets," NBER Working Papers 4400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Augusto Castillo, 2004. "Firm and Corporate Bond Valuation: A Simulation Dynamic Programming Approach," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 41(124), pages 345-360.
    5. Robert L. Brown & Dominique Achour, 1984. "The Pricing of Land Options," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 21(3), pages 317-323, August.
    6. Duffie, Darrell, 2003. "Intertemporal asset pricing theory," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 639-742, Elsevier.
    7. Sanjiv Ranjan Das & Rangarajan K. Sundaram, 1998. "A Direct Approach to Arbitrage-Free Pricing of Derivatives," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-013, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    8. David S. Bates, 1995. "Testing Option Pricing Models," NBER Working Papers 5129, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Michael B. Imerman, 2020. "When enough is not enough: bank capital and the Too-Big-To-Fail subsidy," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1371-1406, November.
    10. Das, Sanjiv Ranjan & Acharya, Viral & Sundaram, Rangarajan K, 2002. "Pricing Credit Derivatives with Rating Transitions," CEPR Discussion Papers 3329, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Minqiang Li & Kyuseok Lee, 2011. "An adaptive successive over-relaxation method for computing the Black-Scholes implied volatility," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(8), pages 1245-1269.
    12. Michael B. Imerman, 0. "When enough is not enough: bank capital and the Too-Big-To-Fail subsidy," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-36.
    13. Mohammadreza Janvisloo Alizadeh & Reza Sherafatian-Jahromi, 2017. "Merton Model and Capital Measurement in Commercial Banks: A Case Study of Selected Emerging Countries in Southeast Asia," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 24(3), pages 169-191, September.
    14. Viral V. Acharya & Jennifer N. Carpenter, 2002. "Corporate Bond Valuation and Hedging with Stochastic Interest Rates and Endogenous Bankruptcy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1355-1383.
    15. Sanjiv Ranjan Das & Rangarajan K. Sundaram, 2000. "A Discrete-Time Approach to Arbitrage-Free Pricing of Credit Derivatives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(1), pages 46-62, January.
    16. Murphy, Austin & Headley, Adrian, 2022. "An empirical evaluation of alternative fundamental models of credit spreads," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Daniel Sanches, 2016. "On the Inherent Instability of Private Money," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 198-214, April.
    18. Eberhart, Allan C., 2005. "A comparison of Merton's option pricing model of corporate debt valuation to the use of book values," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-2), pages 401-426, March.
    19. Chen, An-Sing & Chu, Hsiang-Hui & Hung, Pi-Hsia & Cheng, Miao-Sih, 2020. "Financial risk and acquirers' stockholder wealth in mergers and acquisitions," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    20. Heller, Yuval & Peleg-Lazar, Sharon & Raviv, Alon, 2019. "A closed-form solution to the risk-taking motivation of subordinated debtholders," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 169-173.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:3645. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.