TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rousseau,Peter L.
TI  - A Common Currency: Early U.S. Monetary Policy and the Transition to the Dollar
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10702
PY  - 2004
Y2  - August 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10702
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10702.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Peter L. Rousseau
Department of Economics
Vanderbilt University
VU Station B #351819
2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN 37235-1819
Tel: 615/343-2466
E-Mail: peter.l.rousseau@vanderbilt.edu
AB  - The transition of the U.S. money supply from the mixture of paper bills of credit, certificates, and foreign coins that circulated at various exchange rates with the British pound sterling during the colonial period to the unified dollar standard of the early national period was rapid and had far-reaching consequences. This paper documents the transition and highlights the importance of this standardization in bringing order to the nation's finances and in facilitating the accumulation and intermediation of capital. It describes how the struggle of the colonies to maintain viable substitutes for hard money set the stage for the financial leaders of the Federalist period, led by Alexander Hamilton, to settle upon the dollar, attach it to a convertible metallic base, and create a national Bank that issued notes denominated in the new monetary unit. It also presents recently-constructed estimates of the U.S. money stock for 1790-1820 and relates them to measures of the nation's early modernization.
ER  -