IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v64y2004i04p1108-1129_04.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Free Silver Movement in America: A Reinterpretation

Author

Listed:
  • GRAMM, MARSHALL
  • GRAMM, PHIL

Abstract

Monetary historians have contended that Free Silver advocates were inflationists seeking debt reduction. We offer an alternative interpretation using a theory of money demand with differential returns on nominal units and a nonoptimum nominal money stock. Our explanation is more logically appealing and more consistent with contemporary evidence. The restrictive coinage laws of the period produced chronic shortages, and our empirical analysis provides clear evidence of these shortages. A shortage of coins valued at a half-day's wage and less, raised transactions costs, produced hardship and spawned protest.

Suggested Citation

  • Gramm, Marshall & Gramm, Phil, 2004. "The Free Silver Movement in America: A Reinterpretation," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 1108-1129, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:64:y:2004:i:04:p:1108-1129_04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050704043104/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barry Eichengreen & Michael R. Haines & Matthew S. Jaremski & David Leblang, 2017. "Populists at the Polls: Economic Factors in the 1896 Presidential Election," NBER Working Papers 23932, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Roldan Alba, 2022. "The Golden Fetters in the Mediterranean Periphery. How Spain and Italy Overcame Business Cycles Between 1870 and 1913?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 170-193, January.
    3. Andre Varella Mollick, 2016. "Adoption of the Gold Standard and Real Exchange Rates in the Core and Periphery, 1870–1913," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 89-107, April.

    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:cup:jechis:v:64:y:2004:i:04:p:1108-1129_04. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    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.