Floating a "Lifeboat": The Banque de France and the Crisis of 1889

The authors would like to thank the participants in conferences and seminars at the Banque de France, the November 2013 Carnegie-Rochester-NYC Conference on Public Policy, the 2013 Cliometrics Conference, Duke University, European University Institute, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco-All UC Conference, the Federal Reserve Board, George Mason University, the Graduate Institute of Geneva, the Paris School of Economics, the Solvay Brussels School, Rutgers University, Vanderbilt University, and the 2012 World Economic History Congress. We owe a debt of gratitude to Patrice Baubeau for generously sharing the Banque de France's balance sheets data that he laboriously pieced together. We are especially appreciative the many comments and suggestions we received from Guillaume Bazot, Vincent Bignon, Michael Bordo, Youssef Cassis, Marc Flandreau, Marvin Goodfriend, Regina Grafe, Todd Keister, John Landon-Lane, Carolyn Moehling, Eric Monnet, Emmanuel Prunaux, Hugh Rockoff and Pierre Sicsic, and our research assistants George Berry, Valentina Mussa, and Gurpal Sran. We appreciate the financial support from the Europlace Institute, the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, and Rutgers University's ARESTY and Research Council grants. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.