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Hamilton Unbound Finance and the Creation of the American Republic
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Robert E. Wright
ISBN: 0-275-97816-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97816-7
248 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 8/30/2002
List Price: $95.00 (UK Sterling Price: £65.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Modern financial theories enable us to look at old problems in early American Republic historiography from new perspectives. Concepts such as information asymmetry, portfolio choice, and principal-agent dilemmas open up new scholarly vistas. Transcending the ongoing debates over the prevalence of either community or capitalism in early America, Wright offers fresh and compelling arguments that illuminate motivations for individual and collective actions, and brings agency back into the historical equation.

Wright argues that the Colonial rebellion was in part sparked by destabilizing British monetary policy that threatened many with financial insolvency; that in areas without modern financial institutions and practices, dueling was a rational means of protecting one's creditworthiness; that the principle-agent problem led to the institutionalization of the U.S. Constitution's system of checks and balances; and that a lack of information and education induced women to shift from active business owners to passive investors. Economists, historians, and political scientists alike will be interested in this strikingly novel and compelling recasting of our nation's formative decades.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
    Interest Rates and the Coming of the American Revolution
    Early U.S. Constitutions as Solutions to the Principal-Agent Problem
    Financial Development, Economic Growth, and Political Stability
    Banks and the "Revolution" of 1800
    Credit Analysis and the Prevalence of Dueling
    Financial Markets and the Subjugation of Women
    Postscript
    References
    Index
About the Author: ROBERT E. WRIGHT is Lecturer in Economics at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Origins of Commercial Banking in America, 1750-1800 (2001), and The Wealth of Nations Rediscovered: Integration and Expansion in American Financial Markets, 1780-1850 (2002).
LCC Class: 332
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