IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v62y2002i02p457-488_00.html

Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, And The Panic Of 1837

Author

Listed:
  • Rousseau, Peter L.

Abstract

A number of hypotheses attempt to disentangle the “true” causes of the Panic of 1837 from domestic and international factors that came into play as the crisis approached. I analyze U.S. government documents and contemporary newspapers to reconsider the role of domestic factors. These sources place neither the official distribution of the federal surplus nor an international shock at the center. Rather, a series of interbank transfers of government balances and a policy-induced increase in the demand for coin in the Western states drained the largest New York City banks of their specie reserves and rendered the panic inevitable.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:62:y:2002:i:02:p:457-488_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050702000566/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bordo, Michael D., 2012. "Could the United States have had a better central bank? An historical counterfactual speculation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 597-607.
    2. Peter L. Rousseau, 2013. "Politics on the road to the U.S. monetary union," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 13-00006, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    3. Matthew Jaremski & Peter L. Rousseau, 2013. "Banks, Free Banks, And U.S. Economic Growth," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1603-1621, April.
    4. Kaloyan Ganev, 2014. "Early theories of business cycle and their role on the development of economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 39-56.
    5. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation and American History," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 1-42, May.
    6. repec:wvu:wpaper:10-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Peter L. Rousseau, 2021. "Jackson, the Bank War, and the Legacy of the Second Bank of the United States," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 111, pages 501-507, May.
    8. Zhang, Qunzhi & Sornette, Didier & Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin & Yetkiner, Hakan, 2016. "LPPLS bubble indicators over two centuries of the S&P 500 index," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 458(C), pages 126-139.
    9. John Joseph Wallis, 2006. "The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American History," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 23-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Joseph Davis & Marc D. Weidenmier, 2016. "America's First Great Moderation," NBER Working Papers 21856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Charles Calomiris, 2009. "Banking Crises and the Rules of the Game," NBER Working Papers 15403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Joseph Davis & Vanguard Group; Christopher Hanes, 2004. "Primary Sector Shocks and Early American Industrialization," 2004 Meeting Papers 154, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Charles W. Calomiris, 2007. "Bank Failures in Theory and History: The Great Depression and Other "Contagious" Events," NBER Working Papers 13597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. John Joseph Wallis, 2001. "The Property Tax as a Coordinating Device: Financing Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvement System, 1835 to 1842," NBER Historical Working Papers 0136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Zackary Baker, 2018. "An Analysis of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania (1836‐1841)," Studies in Applied Economics 101, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    16. Wallis, John Joseph, 2003. "The property tax as a coordinating device: Financing Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvement System, 1835-1842," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 223-250, July.
    17. Michael D. Bordo & David C. Wheelock, 2004. "Monetary policy and asset prices: a look back at past U.S. stock market booms," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Nov), pages 19-44.
    18. Christopher David Absell, 2020. "The rise of coffee in the Brazilian south‐east: tariffs and foreign market potential, 1827–40," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 964-990, November.
    19. Gareth Campbell & Meeghan Rogers, 2017. "Integration between the London and New York Stock Exchanges, 1825–1925," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1185-1218, November.
    20. Peter L. Rousseau, 2016. "The Politics of Financial Development: A Review of Calomiris and Haber's Fragile by Design," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 208-223, March.
    21. 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.
    22. John Joseph Wallis, 2004. "The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American Political and Economic History," NBER Working Papers 10952, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation Of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation And American History," NBER Working Papers 18825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - 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:cup:jechis:v:62:y:2002:i:02:p:457-488_00. 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.