Why did China decline between 1400 and 1980, only to reestablish a major presence in the
global economy? Why did Eu rope, a region torn by strife and suffering and economic …

Modern civilization revolves around money. However, money is a paradox. It is nothing more
than a representation of and medium for decentralized networks of social trust, but its …

Whoever wants to come to a good and sound conclusion must not make up his mind before
paying attention to all arguments, or (as the say goes)“bring the verdict to Senate from …

Money is usually understood as a valuable object, the value of which is attributed to it by its
users and which other users recognize. It serves to link disparate institutions, providing a …

The debate over the institutions that link economic growth to public finance tends to
disregard the need for savings to finance growing public debt. In seventeenth-century …

I reexamine Douglass North and Barry Weingast's argument regarding credible commitment
and sovereign debt in post-revolution England. The central problem that the architects of the …

Abstract The Bank Restriction Act of 1797 was the unconventional monetary policy of its
time. It suspended the convertibility of the Bank of England's notes into gold, a policy that …

Abstract “Central banking” is what a central bank does, but the definition of “central bank” is
less straightforward than it may appear at first sight. Following Ugolini (The evolution of …

This paper challenges a belief that is deeply embedded in mainstream economics—that
1688–1701 saw a fundamental transformation in England that sprang from changes in the …

From its foundation as a private corporation in 1694, the Bank of England extended large
amounts of credit to support the British private economy and to support an increasingly …