IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jmacro/v37y2013icp182-196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858

Author

Listed:
  • Young, Andrew T.
  • Dove, John A.

Abstract

Conventional monetary theory suggests that a closed system banking regime may lead to in-concert overexpansions of circulation by its banks. However, Selgin (2001, 2010) argues that this is unlikely as long as there are enough banks to ensure (i) routine interbank settlement and (ii) no collusion amongst banks refraining from redeeming one another’s notes. Banks effectively form a “chain gang” where in-concert expansion requires coordination that is prohibitively costly in a system with many banks. In order to test this conjecture, we examine state-level data on circulations and reserves from the Suffolk Banking System (1825–1858) in New England. In addition to narrative evidence on the stability of the Suffolk, panel cointegration tests provide evidence of a long-run relationship between state-level circulations and total reserves. The estimated error-correction mechanisms suggest a deviation half-life of about 2years. We argue that a cointegrating relationship between circulations and reserves, along with rapid error-correction, supports the Selgin hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Young, Andrew T. & Dove, John A., 2013. "Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 182-196.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:37:y:2013:i:c:p:182-196
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2013.05.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016407041300089X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmacro.2013.05.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rousseau, Peter L., 2002. "Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, And The Panic Of 1837," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 457-488, June.
    2. Bruce Smith & Warren E. Weber, 1999. "Private money creation and the Suffolk Banking System," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 624-667.
    3. Pedroni, Peter, 2004. "Panel Cointegration: Asymptotic And Finite Sample Properties Of Pooled Time Series Tests With An Application To The Ppp Hypothesis," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 597-625, June.
    4. Selgin, George, 1994. "Free Banking and Monetary Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1449-1459, November.
    5. Selgin, George, 2001. "In-Concert Overexpansion and the Precautionary Demand for Bank Reserves," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(2), pages 294-300, May.
    6. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    7. Calomiris, Charles W & Kahn, Charles M, 1996. "The Efficiency of Self-Regulated Payments Systems: Learning from the Suffolk System," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 766-797, November.
    8. Peter Pedroni, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 653-670, November.
    9. Maddala, G S & Wu, Shaowen, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 631-652, Special I.
    10. Arthur J. Rolnick & Bruce Smith & Warren E. Weber, 1998. "Lessons from a laissez-faire payments system: the Suffolk Banking System, 1825-58," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 105-116.
    11. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    12. Gorton, Gary & Mullineaux, Donald J, 1987. "The Joint Production of Confidence: Endogenous Regulation and Nineteenth Century Commercial-Bank Clearinghouses," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 19(4), pages 457-468, November.
    13. Lake, Wilfred S., 1947. "The End of the Suffolk System," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 183-207, November.
    14. Bodenhorn, Howard, 2002. "Making The Little Guy Pay: Payments-System Networks, Cross-Subsidization, And The Collapse Of The Suffolk System," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 147-169, March.
    15. Pedroni, Peter, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 653-670, Special I.
    16. Gorton, Gary, 1985. "Clearinghouses and the Origin of Central Banking in the United States," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 277-283, June.
    17. Dowd, Kevin, 1994. "Competitive Banking, Bankers' Clubs, and Bank Regulation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 26(2), pages 289-308, May.
    18. Charles Goodhart, 1988. "The Evolution of Central Banks," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262570734, December.
    19. Glasner,David, 2005. "Free Banking and Monetary Reform," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521022514.
    20. George A. Selgin & Lawrence H. White, 1994. "How Would the Invisible Hand Handle Money?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1718-1749, December.
    21. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    22. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    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. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "Would a free banking system stabilize NGDP growth?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 21-25.
    2. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "A theory of self-enforcing monetary constitutions with reference to the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 13-22.
    3. Mathias Klein, 2015. "Inequality and household debt: a panel cointegration analysis," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 391-412, May.

    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. repec:wvu:wpaper:10-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "A theory of self-enforcing monetary constitutions with reference to the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 13-22.
    3. repec:zbw:rwirep:0557 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Bernstein, Ronald & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Responsiveness of Residential Electricity Demand in OECD Countries: A Panel Cointegation and Causality Analysis," FCN Working Papers 8/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    5. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E., 2011. "The renewable energy consumption-growth nexus in Central America," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 343-347, January.
    6. Nicoleta Mihaela Florea & Roxana Maria Bădîrcea & Ramona Costina Pîrvu & Alina Georgiana Manta & Marius Dalian Doran & Elena Jianu, 2020. "The impact of agriculture and renewable energy on climate change in Central and East European Countries," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 66(10), pages 444-457.
    7. Dennis Fok & André Stel & Andrew Burke & Roy Thurik, 2019. "How entry crowds and grows markets: the gradual disaster management view of market dynamics in the retail industry," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 283(1), pages 1111-1138, December.
    8. Olivier Damette & Mathilde Maurel & Michael A. Stemmer, 2016. "What does it take to grow out of recession? An error-correction approach towards growth convergence of European and transition countries," Post-Print halshs-01318131, HAL.
    9. Hamit-Haggar, Mahamat, 2012. "Greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and economic growth: A panel cointegration analysis from Canadian industrial sector perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 358-364.
    10. Yongfu Huang, 2011. "Private investment and financial development in a globalized world," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 43-56, August.
    11. Fr餩ric Laurin, 2012. "Trade and regional growth in Spain: panel cointegration in a small sample," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 435-447, February.
    12. Carlos Alberto Barreto Nieto & Jacobo Campo Robledo, 2012. "Relación a largo plazo entre consumo de energía y PIB en América Latina: Una evaluación empírica con datos panel," Revista Ecos de Economía, Universidad EAFIT, October.
    13. Ramesh Chandra Das & Tonmoy Chatterjee & Enrico Ivaldi, 2022. "Nexus between Housing Price and Magnitude of Pollution: Evidence from the Panel of Some High- and-Low Polluting Cities of the World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-18, July.
    14. David Greasley & Les Oxley, 2010. "Cliometrics And Time Series Econometrics: Some Theory And Applications," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 970-1042, December.
    15. Mónica Meireles & Margarita Robaina & Daniel Magueta, 2021. "The Effectiveness of Environmental Taxes in Reducing CO 2 Emissions in Passenger Vehicles: The Case of Mediterranean Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-13, May.
    16. Thian-Hee Yiew & Chin-Yu Lee & Lin-Sea Lau, 2021. "Economic growth in selected G20 countries: How do different pollution emissions matter?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(8), pages 11451-11474, August.
    17. Pao, Hsiao-Tien & Tsai, Chung-Ming, 2011. "Multivariate Granger causality between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, FDI (foreign direct investment) and GDP (gross domestic product): Evidence from a panel of BRIC (Brazil, Russian Federation, I," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 685-693.
    18. Rajesh Sharma & Samaresh Bardhan, 2017. "Finance growth nexus across Indian states: evidences from panel cointegration and causality tests," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 1-20, February.
    19. Omri, Anis, 2018. "Entrepreneurship, sectoral outputs and environmental improvement: International evidence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 46-55.
    20. Edmore Mahembe & Nicholas Mbaya Odhiambo, 2019. "Foreign aid, poverty and economic growth in developing countries: A dynamic panel data causality analysis," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 1626321-162, January.
    21. Gharehgozli, Orkideh, 2021. "An empirical comparison between a regression framework and the Synthetic Control Method," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 70-81.
    22. El-Shazly, Alaa, 2013. "Electricity demand analysis and forecasting: A panel cointegration approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 251-258.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    American free banking; Suffolk System; Panel data; Cointegration; Error-correction; History of banking; Adverse clearings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    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:eee:jmacro:v:37:y:2013:i:c:p:182-196. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622617 .

    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.