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Land Policy: Founding Choices and Outcomes, 1781-1802

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Author Info
Farley Grubb
Abstract

Victory in the War for Independence brought a vast amount of land within the grasp of the new American nation -- territory stretching from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River between the southern shores of the Great Lakes and Spanish Florida. These lands were initially claimed by several states. Pressure from states without land claims led to these lands being transferred to the national government. The land so transferred was to be used to pay for the revolution. By 1802 this national public domain totaled roughly 220 million acres of saleable land that was worth about $215 million dollars at constant-dollar long-run equilibrium land prices. A public finance approach is used to explain the choices facing the government regarding how to use its lands to pay for the revolution. The first choice -- directly swapping land for war debt -- was superseded by the second choice, namely "backing" the national debt with its land assets and pledging future proceeds from land sales to be used by law only to redeem the principal of the national debt and nothing else. This land policy helped stabilize the national government's financial position and put the U.S. on a sound credit footing by the mid-1790s.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 15028.

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Date of creation: Jun 2009
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15028

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
N41 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
O13 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment
O23 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development

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