IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dlw/wpaper/16-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Colonial Virginia's Paper Money Regime, 1755-1774: Value Decomposition and Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Farley Grubb

    (Department of Economics, University of Delaware)

Abstract

I decompose Virginia's paper money into expected real-asset present value, risk discount, and transaction premium or "moneyness" value. The value of Virginia's paper money was determined primarily by its real-asset present value. The transaction premium was small. Positive risk discounts occurred in years when treasurer malfeasance was suspected. Virginia's paper money was not a fiat currency, but a barter asset, with just enough "moneyness" value to make it the preferred medium of exchange for local transactions. Compared with alternative models, my decomposition model of inside monies is superior conceptually and statistically for explaining the performance of American colonial paper monies.

Suggested Citation

  • Farley Grubb, 2016. "Colonial Virginia's Paper Money Regime, 1755-1774: Value Decomposition and Performance," Working Papers 16-01, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:dlw:wpaper:16-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lerner.udel.edu/sites/default/files/ECON/PDFs/RePEc/dlw/WorkingPapers/2016/UDWP2016-01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jim Celia & Farley Grubb, 2014. "Non-Legal-Tender Paper Money: The Structure and Performance of Maryland’s Bills of Credit, 1767-1775," Working Papers 14-13, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    2. James Celia & Farley Grubb, 2016. "Non-legal-tender paper money: the structure and performance of Maryland's bills of credit, 1767–75," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(4), pages 1132-1156, November.
    3. Farley Grubb, 2016. "Is Paper Money Just Paper Money? Experimentation and Variation in the Paper Monies Issued by the American Colonies from 1690 to 1775," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, volume 32, pages 147-224, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. West, Robert Craig, 1978. "Money in the Colonial American Economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(1), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Davis, Ken & Whittlesey, Norman K. & Huffaker, Ray G. & Butcher, Walter R. & Smith, Eldon D. & Francl, Terry & Smith, Katherine R. & Ravnholt, Eiler C. & Gantz, Eugene & Baquet, Alan E. & Skees, Jerry, 1994. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-5.
    6. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Colonial Virginia's Paper Money Regime, 1755-1774: A Forensic Accounting Reconstruction of the Data," Working Papers 15-11, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    7. Farley Grubb, 2014. "A New Approach to Solving the Colonial Monetary Puzzle: Evidence from New Jersey, 1709-1775," NBER Working Papers 19903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Farley Grubb, 2014. "A New Approach to Explaining the Value of Colonial Paper Money: Evidence from New Jersey, 1709-1775," Working Papers 14-08, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Farley Grubb, 2016. "Is Paper Money Just Paper Money? Experimentation and Variation in the Paper Monies Issued by the American Colonies from 1690 to 1775," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, volume 32, pages 147-224, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Common Currency versus Currency Union: The U.S. Continental Dollar and Denominational Structure, 1775-1776," NBER Working Papers 21728, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Common Currency versus Currency Union: The U.S. Continental Dollar and Denominational Structure, 1775-1779," Working Papers 15-10, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    4. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Colonial New Jersey’s Provincial Fiscal Structure, 1709-1775: Spending Obligations, Revenue Sources, and Tax Burdens in War and in Peace," Working Papers 15-08, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    5. Farley Grubb, 2018. "Colonial Maryland's Post-1764 Paper Money: A Reply to Ron Michener," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 15(2), pages 168–178-1, May.
    6. Farley Grubb, 2012. "Chronic Specie Scarcity and Efficient Barter: The Problem of Maintaining an Outside Money Supply in British Colonial America ," Working Papers 12-08, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    7. Cutsinger, Bryan P. & Rouanet, Louis & Ingber, Joshua S., 2023. "Assignats or death: The politics and dynamics of hyperinflation in revolutionary France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Jalil, Mohammad Muaz, 2009. "Re-examining Kuznets Hypothesis: Does Data Matter?," MPRA Paper 72557, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Farley Grubb, 2015. "Colonial Virginia’s Paper Money Regime, 1755-1774: a Forensic Accounting Reconstruction of the Data," NBER Working Papers 21785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Farley Grubb, 2014. "A New Approach to Explaining the Value of Colonial Paper Money: Evidence from New Jersey, 1709-1775," Working Papers 14-08, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    11. Rousseau, Peter L. & Stroup, Caleb, 2011. "Monetization and growth in colonial New England, 1703–1749," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 600-613.
    12. Grubb, Farley, 2004. "The circulating medium of exchange in colonial Pennsylvania, 1729-1775: new estimates of monetary composition, performance, and economic growth," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 329-360, October.
    13. Farley Grubb, 2012. "Is Paper Money just Paper Money/ Experimentation and Local Variation in the Fiat Paper Monies Issued by the Colonial Government of British North America, 1690-1775: Part I," Working Papers 12-07, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    14. Farley Grubb, 2014. "A New Approach to Solving the Colonial Monetary Puzzle: Evidence from New Jersey, 1709-1775," NBER Working Papers 19903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Kevin Mongeon & Jason Winfree, 2012. "Comparison of television and gate demand in the National Basketball Association," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 72-79, January.
    16. Farley Grubb, 2003. "Two Theories of Money Reconciled: The Colonial Puzzle Revisited with New Evidence," Working Papers 03-03, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    17. McCallum, Bennett T, 1992. "Money and Prices in Colonial America: A New Test of Competing Theories," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 143-161, February.
    18. Peter L. Rousseau, 2010. "Monetary Policy and the Dollar," NBER Chapters, in: Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, pages 121-149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Robert Houston & Dennis Wilson, 2002. "Income, leisure and proficiency: an economic study of football performance," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(14), pages 939-943.
    20. David Paton & Andrew Cooke, 2005. "Attendance at County Cricket," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(1), pages 24-45, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    asset money; bills of credit; counterfeiting; fiat currency; quantity theory of money; transaction premium; treasury notes; zero-coupon bonds;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:dlw:wpaper:16-01. 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: Saul Hoffman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deudeus.html .

    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.