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Privately Issued Money in the US

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Abstract

In recent years, there has been a revival of privately issued money. Due to the general lack of successful or even widely circulating private currency, it can be challenging to get a clear view of its efficiency using modern data. The U.S. historical period, however, offers a unique environment to examine the topic as private bank money made up a sizable portion of the money supply. Moreover, the period presents a wide range of regulation, including spans with and without the presence of a central bank or monetary authority. This chapter begins by highlighting the general history of privately issued money in the United States from 1790 through its elimination in the 1930s. Topics include the rise of state bank notes, the switch to national bank notes, clearinghouse currency, the Aldrich-Vreeland emergency currency associations, and the decline of private currency. It then examines open topics in the literature and provides suggestions for study going forward.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaremski, Matthew, 2017. "Privately Issued Money in the US," Working Papers 2017-05, Department of Economics, Colgate University, revised 20 Sep 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2017-05
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    File URL: https://digitalcollections.colgate.edu/islandora/object/islandora%253A4734
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    private currency; banks; bank notes; clearinghouses; and financial regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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