Cross-country evidence on the relationship between central banks and governments

Banks and banking, Central ; Fiscal policy ; Monetary policy

Ending Inflation in the People's Republic of China: From Chairman Mao to the 21st Century

In the post-1978 reform period the People’s Republic of China experienced its most serious open inflationary problems since 1949-1950. This paper compares the 1949-1950 case to more recent Chinese attempts at inflation control and considers the role played by budget deficits, indexation and direct intervention in commodity markets. While inflationary problems subsided by the mid-1990s, continuing deficit-spending pressures and weaknesses in China’s banking system still pose a very real danger. The financial reforms undertaken in the late 1990s include initiatives directed at the bad debts accumulated in China’s banks by loss-making state enterprises.

Swiss monetary policy: central bank independence and stabilization goals

Banks and banking, Central - Switzerland ; Monetary policy - Switzerland ; Switzerland

Interaction between central bank behavior and fiscal policymaking: the case of the U.S

Monetary policy - United States ; Fiscal policy

Suppressing Asset Price Inflation: The Confederate Experience, 1861-1865

Confederate monetary reforms encouraged holders of Treasury notes to exchange these notes for bonds by imposing deadlines on their convertibility. We show that Confederate funding acts aimed at precipitating the conversion of currency into bonds did temporarily suppress currency depreciation. These acts also triggered upsurges in commodity prices, however, as note holders rushed to spend the currency before their exchange rights were reduced. Asset price stabilization policies seem to have increased the velocity of circulation and counterproductively channeled inflationary pressures into other areas of the economy.

The Option Value of Confederate Currency and Inflation Control, 1861-1865

Confederate Treasury notes were convertible into government bonds at par. This provided an imbedded option value for the currency. Confederate interest-rate policy encouraged, and ultimately coerced, holders of Treasury notes to exchange these notes for bonds by imposing deadlines on their convertibility. In this paper we identify a long-run equilibrium relationship between the gold value of the bonds and the gold value of Confederate currency. We also show that the three funding acts aimed at precipitating the conversion of currency into bonds were effective in temporarily dampening inflationary pressures.Confederacy; bonds; interest-rate pegging

Inflation is Always and Everywhere a Monetary Phenomenon: Richmond vs. Houston in 1864

On April 1, 1864 the Confederate Currency Reform Act reduced the money supply in the Eastern Confederacy by one third. The delayed implementation of the reform west of the Mississippi provides a counterfactual view of what may have happened in the east had the reform not been enacted. This episode is a natural experiment illustrating the relative importance for prices of war news vs. the quantity of money in circulation. Our analysis of the major eastern and western gold markets, Richmond and Houston, strongly suggests that money matters more than war news in the post-reform period.Confederacy, currency reform, quantity theory

Fiscal policymaking and the central bank institutional constraint

Monetary policy ; Banks and banking, Central ; Fiscal policy

Interest-Bearing Currency and Legal Restrictions Theory: Lessons from the Southern Confederacy

Instances of interest-bearing currency are relatively rare. The Southern Confederacy issued both interest and non-interest-bearing notes during the Civil War. The two types of notes apparently circulated alongside one another with the interest-bearing currency generally commanding the premium implied by legal restrictions theory. Government-imposed restrictions on banks prevented the non-interest-bearing notes from being driven out of circulation. The Southern experience appears to be consistent with the legal restrictions theory of money and suggests a potential role for interest-bearing currency as a circulating medium.

Turning Points in the U.S. Civil War: A British Perspective

This paper examines the Confederate cotton bonds floated in Europe in March 1863 and traded on the London market. Over our March 27, 1863 to June 17, 1865 sample we isolate two, non-reversed, "turning points" that follow news of Confederate defeat at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863 and the fall of Atlanta in September 1864. Our analysis suggests that the turning points important to Southern interests differ from those identified for the Northern side by Willard, Guinnane and Rosen (1996). It seems that war news did not always have symmetric effects on North and South.