IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/man/sespap/1906.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Vagaries of the Sea: Evidence on the Real Effects of Money from Maritime Disasters in the Spanish Empire

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Brzezinski
  • Yao Chen
  • Nuno Palma
  • Felix Ward

Abstract

Maritime disasters in the Spanish Empire (1531-1810) resulted in the loss of substantial amounts of silver money. We exploit this recurring natural experiment to estimate the effect that an exogenous change in the money supply has on the real economy. We find that negative money supply shocks caused Spanish real output to decline. A transmission channel analysis highlights slow price adjustments and credit frictions as channels through which money supply changes affected the real economy. Especially large output declines occurred in textile manufacturing against the backdrop of a credit crunch that impaired merchants’ ability to supply their manufacturers with inputs.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Brzezinski & Yao Chen & Nuno Palma & Felix Ward, 2019. "The Vagaries of the Sea: Evidence on the Real Effects of Money from Maritime Disasters in the Spanish Empire," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1906, Economics, The University of Manchester, revised May 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:man:sespap:1906
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/soss/economics/discussionpapers/EDP-1906.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2004. "A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1055-1084, September.
    2. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    3. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2020. "The effects of quasi-random monetary experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 22-40.
    4. Marc Flandreau & Christophe Galimard & Clemens Jobst & Pilar Nogués-Marco, 2009. "Monetary geography before the Industrial Revolution," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 2(2), pages 149-171.
    5. Francois R. Velde & Warren E. Weber, 2000. "A Model of Bimetallism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1210-1234, December.
    6. Holmström, Bengt, 2013. "Inside and Outside Liquidity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262518536, December.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/sb7ftvod18eb8hqptthmmeddt is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    9. Ian Christensen & Ali Dib, 2008. "The Financial Accelerator in an Estimated New Keynesian Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(1), pages 155-178, January.
    10. Ireland, Peter N., 2003. "Endogenous money or sticky prices?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1623-1648, November.
    11. Velde, F R., 2013. "On the Evolution of Specie: Circulation and Weight Loss in 18th and 19th Century Coinage," Working papers 422, Banque de France.
    12. Silvia Miranda Agrippino & Giovanni Ricco, 2018. "Identification with external instruments in structural VARs under partial invertibility," Sciences Po publications 24, Sciences Po.
    13. Pilar Nogues-Marco, 2011. "Tipos de cambio y tipos de interés en Cádiz en el siglo XVIII (1729-1788)," Estudios de Historia Económica, Banco de España, number 58, November.
    14. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1989. "Does Monetary Policy Matter? A New Test in the Spirit of Friedman and Schwartz," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 121-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    16. François R. Velde, 2009. "Chronicle of a Deflation Unforetold," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(4), pages 591-634, August.
    17. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    18. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2018. "Identification and Estimation of Dynamic Causal Effects in Macroeconomics Using External Instruments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(610), pages 917-948, May.
    19. Carlstrom, Charles T & Fuerst, Timothy S, 1997. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 893-910, December.
    20. Inklaar, Robert & de Jong, Harmen & Bolt, Jutta & van Zanden, Jan, 2018. "Rebasing 'Maddison': new income comparisons and the shape of long-run economic development," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-174, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    21. Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe & Martin Uribe, 2005. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy in a Medium-Scale Macroeconomic Model: Expanded Version," NBER Working Papers 11417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    23. Mark Gertler & Peter Karadi, 2015. "Monetary Policy Surprises, Credit Costs, and Economic Activity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 44-76, January.
    24. N. J. Mayhew, 1974. "Numismatic Evidence and Falling Prices in the Fourteenth Century," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 27(1), pages 1-15, February.
    25. James Cloyne & Patrick Hürtgen, 2016. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Monetary Policy: A New Measure for the United Kingdom," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 75-102, October.
    26. Ben S. Bernanke & Jean Boivin & Piotr Eliasz, 2005. "Measuring the Effects of Monetary Policy: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 387-422.
    27. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1, March.
    28. Bernholz, Peter & Kugler, Peter, 2011. "Financial market integration in the early modern period in Spain: Results from a threshold error correction model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 93-96, February.
    29. Nuno Palma, 2019. "The Real Effects of Monetary Expansions: Evidence from a Large-Scale Historical Natural Experiment," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1904, Economics, The University of Manchester, revised Aug 2021.
    30. Erceg, Christopher J. & Henderson, Dale W. & Levin, Andrew T., 2000. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 281-313, October.
    31. Nuno Palma, 2019. "American Precious Metals and their Consequences for Early Modern Europe," Working Papers 0174, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    32. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    33. Nuno Palma, 2018. "Reconstruction of money supply over the long run: the case of England, 1270–1870," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(2), pages 373-392, May.
    34. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    35. N. J. Mayhew, 1995. "Population, money supply, and the velocity of circulation in England, 1300–1700," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 48(2), pages 238-257, May.
    36. Ireland, Peter N., 1997. "A small, structural, quarterly model for monetary policy evaluation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 83-108, December.
    37. Herman J. Jong & Nuno Palma, 2018. "Historical National Accounting," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin (ed.), An Economist’s Guide to Economic History, chapter 46, pages 395-403, Palgrave Macmillan.
    38. Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe & Martin Uribe, 2006. "Comparing Two Variants of Calvo-Type Wage Stickiness," NBER Working Papers 12740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1995. "Symposium on the Monetary Transmission Mechanism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 3-10, Fall.
    40. Motomura, Akira, 1997. "New Data on Minting, Seigniorage, and the Money Supply in Spain (Castile), 1597-1643," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 331-367, July.
    41. Flandreau, Marc & Jobst, Clemens & Nogues-Marco, Pilar & Galimard, Christophe, 2006. "The Bell Jar: Commercial Interest Rates between Two Revolutions, 1688-1789," CEPR Discussion Papers 5940, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    42. Nogues-Marco, Pilar, 2013. "Competing Bimetallic Ratios: Amsterdam, London, and Bullion Arbitrage in Mid-Eighteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(2), pages 445-476, June.
    43. C. C. Patterson, 1972. "Silver Stocks and Losses in Ancient and Medieval Times," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 25(2), pages 205-233, May.
    44. Mauricio Drelichman & Joachim Voth, 2006. "The sustainable debts of Philip II: A reconstruction of Castile's fiscal position, 1566-1596," Economics Working Papers 1121, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised May 2009.
    45. Peter Koudijs, 2016. "The Boats That Did Not Sail: Asset Price Volatility in a Natural Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1185-1226, June.
    46. Glassman, Debra & Redish, Angela, 1985. "New Estimates of the Money Stock in France, 1493–1680," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 31-46, March.
    47. Peter Koudijs, 2015. "Those Who Know Most: Insider Trading in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1356-1409.
    48. Drelichman, Mauricio & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2010. "The Sustainable Debts of Philip II: A Reconstruction of Castile's Fiscal Position, 1566–1596," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(4), pages 813-842, December.
    49. Nogues-Marco, María del Pilar, 2011. "The microeconomics of bullionism : arbitrage, smuggling and silver outflows in Spain in the early 18th century," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp11-05, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    50. Julio J. Rotemberg, 1982. "Monopolistic Price Adjustment and Aggregate Output," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(4), pages 517-531.
    51. Martin Uribe & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe, 2005. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy In A Medium Scale Macro Model," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 476, Society for Computational Economics.
    52. de Roover, Raymond, 1967. "The Scholastics, Usury, and Foreign Exchange," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 257-271, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The vagaries of the sea: evidence on the real effects of money from maritime disasters in the Spanish Empire
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2019-11-22 17:14:55

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Yao & Palma, Nuno & Ward, Felix, 2021. "Reconstruction of the Spanish money supply, 1492–1810," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Palma, Nuno & Charotti, Carlos Javier & dos Santos, Joao Pereira, 2022. "American treasure and the decline of Spain," CEPR Discussion Papers 17020, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Koyama, Mark & Arteaga, Fernando & Desierto, Desiree, 2020. "Shipwrecked by Rents," CEPR Discussion Papers 15300, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Adam Brzezinski & Roberto Bonfatti & K. KıvançKaraman & Nuno Palma, 2020. "Monetary Capacity," Economics Series Working Papers 926, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Leticia Arroyo Abad & Nuno Palma, 2020. "The Fruits of El Dorado: The Global Impact of American Precious Metals," Working Papers 0179, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    6. Nuno Palma, 2019. "American Precious Metals and their Consequences for Early Modern Europe," Working Papers 0174, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).

    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. Nuno Palma, 2019. "The Real Effects of Monetary Expansions: Evidence from a Large-Scale Historical Natural Experiment," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1904, Economics, The University of Manchester, revised Aug 2021.
    2. Chen, Yao & Palma, Nuno & Ward, Felix, 2021. "Reconstruction of the Spanish money supply, 1492–1810," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    4. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    5. Matthieu Darracq Paries, 2018. "Financial frictions and monetary policy conduct," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph18-01 edited by Ferhat Mihoubi, December.
    6. Michael McLeay & Silvana Tenreyro, 2020. "Optimal Inflation and the Identification of the Phillips Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 199-255.
    7. Lu, Dong & Tang, Huoqing & Zhang, Chengsi, 2023. "China's monetary policy surprises and corporate real investment," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin S. Eichenbaum & Mathias Trabandt, 2018. "On DSGE Models," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 113-140, Summer.
    9. Anna Samarina & Anh D.M. Nguyen, 2024. "Does Monetary Policy Affect Income Inequality in the Euro Area?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(1), pages 35-80, February.
    10. Abdellah Manadir & Kevin Moran, 2018. "Optimal Bayesian Estimation of Financial Frictions: An Encompassing View," Cahiers de recherche 1816, Centre de recherche sur les risques, les enjeux économiques, et les politiques publiques.
    11. Oscar Jorda & Alan Taylor & Sanjay Singh, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Monetary Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 1307, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Robin Braun & Ralf Brüggemann, 2017. "Identification of SVAR Models by Combining Sign Restrictions With External Instruments," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2017-07, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    13. Mendicino, Caterina & Punzi, Maria Teresa, 2014. "House prices, capital inflows and macroprudential policy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 337-355.
    14. Guido Ascari & Timo Haber, 2019. "Sticky prices and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy: A minimal test of New Keynesian models," Economics Series Working Papers 869, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Pedro Garcia Duarte, 2011. "Recent Developments in Macroeconomics: The DSGE Approach to Business Cycles in Perspective," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Thwaites, Gregory & Vicondoa, Alejandro, 2016. "Monetary policy transmission in an open economy:new data and evidence from the United Kingdom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86235, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Accolley, Delali, 2018. "Accounting for Busines Cycles in Canada: II. The Role of Money," MPRA Paper 85481, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Dib, Ali & Mendicino, Caterina & Zhang, Yahong, 2013. "Price-level targeting rules and financial shocks: The case of Canada," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 941-953.
    19. Adam Brzezinski & Roberto Bonfatti & K. KıvançKaraman & Nuno Palma, 2020. "Monetary Capacity," Economics Series Working Papers 926, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. Alloza, Mario & Sanz, Carlos & Gonzalo, Jesús, 2019. "Dynamic Effects of Persistent Shocks," UC3M Working papers. Economics 29187, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-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:man:sespap:1906. 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: Marianne Sensier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.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.