Free Banking Laws and Barriers to Entry in Banking, 1838–1860
@article{Ng1988FreeBL,
title={Free Banking Laws and Barriers to Entry in Banking, 1838–1860},
author={Kenneth Ng},
journal={The Journal of Economic History},
year={1988},
volume={48},
pages={877 - 889},
url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:155043151}
}The thesis that free banking laws lowered barriers to entry in the U.S. banking industry is tested by examining entry of firms and output of banking services before and after the institution of free banking. The output of banking services and the number of banks remained the same or declined after the institution of free banking, in all states with viable free banking laws except New York. In light of this evidence, the belief that free banking in the antebellum United States increased…
41 Citations
Free Banking and Competition in Antebellum America
- 2021
Economics, History
Economic historians remain divided over America’s experiment with free banking during the antebellum era. Some argue that the reforms, which liberalized the bank-chartering process, simply exchanged…
rticle ree banking and bank entry in Latin America uis
- 2013
Economics, Business
This article analyzes the impact of free-banking on the banking sector in Latin America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I use data for seven countries to compare the entry of banks and the…
Free-banking revisited: the Chilean experience 1860-1898
- 2002
Economics, History
During a large part of the second half of the 19 century Chile had a free-banking system, which allowed virtually any banking institution to issue money without major restrictions other than some…
The Separation of Banking and Commerce in the United States: An Examination of Principal Issues
- 1999
Law, Business
Banking law and regulation in the United States have customarily restricted the nonbanking activities of banks and the banking activities of nonbanking firms, producing a separation of banking from…
Wildcat banking, banking panics, and free banking in the United States
- 1996
Economics, History
Banks in the United States issued currency with no oversight of any kind by the federal goverment from 1837 to 1865. Many of these banks were part of "free banking" systems with no discretionary…
Lessons from the American Experience with Free Banking
- 1989
Economics
There has been considerable interest in recent years in historical experiments with "free banking." This paper examines once again the American experiments in the decades before the Civil War, and…
Free banking and bank entry in nineteenth-century New York
- 2008
Economics
Abstract Previous studies of entry under New York's free banking law of 1838 have generated conflicting results. This article shows that different measures of entry lead to different conclusions…
Are Central Banks necessary
- 1993
Economics
Two recent studies use history and theory to examine the likely consequences of eliminating government intervention in the provision of money. Such proposals would end the central bank monopoly over…
12 References
Varieties of Banking and Regional Economic Development in the United States, 1840–1860
- 1975
Economics, History
It is sometimes asserted that a laissez-faire policy toward financial intermediaries tends to deepen financial development and accelerate economic growth. The two decades preceding the American Civil…
Forgotten Men of Money: Private Bankers in Early U.S. History
- 1976
History, Economics
Historical accounts of banking developments in the pre-1860 period of U.S. history focus almost exclusively on banking institutions chartered by state and federal governments. Private, unincorporated…
The American capital market, 1846-1914 : a study of the effects of public policy on economic development
- 1970
Economics, History
THE AMERICAN ECONOMY'S rapid industrialization during an extended period of falling prices in the late nineteenth century provides the backdrop for the problems explored in this study. Recent…
New Evidence on Free Banking in the United States [New Evidence on the Free Banking Era]
- 1985
Economics