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The Continental Dollar: How Much Was Really Issued?

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Farley Grubb

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Abstract

The U.S. Congress issued paper money called Continental Dollars to finance the American Revolution. The story of the Continental Dollar is familiar to all -- a lot were issued and hyper-inflation ensued. However, the details of this story are less well known. Scholars even disagree over how much was issued -- disagree by over 50 percent. Meaningful monetary analysis of the Continental Dollar cannot proceed given this confusion in the data. Evidence is gathered here to reconcile past estimates and establish the exact amount and time path of Continental Dollars emitted thereby overcoming the entropy that has crept into the historical record.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13047.

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Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13047

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations
N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions
N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Michener, Ron, 1988. "Backing Theories and the Currencies of Eighteenth-Century America: A Comment," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(03), pages 682-692, September. [Downloadable!]
  2. Calomiris, Charles W., 1988. "Institutional Failure, Monetary Scarcity, and the Depreciation of the Continental," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(01), pages 47-68, March. [Downloadable!]
  3. Peter M. Garber, 1991. "Alexander Hamilton's Market Based Debt Reduction Plan," NBER Working Papers 3597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Farley Grubb, 2008. "The Continental Dollar: What Happened to It after 1779?," NBER Working Papers 13770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Farley Grubb, 2008. "The Distribution of Congressional Spending During the American Revolution, 1775-1780: The Problem of Geographic Balance," NBER Working Papers 14267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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