Under the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, the U.S. banking system simultaneously experienced immense growth and also severe financial instability stemming from nationwide banking panics. This dissertation explores both aspects of this period. The first chapter demonstrates that the wave of railroad failures during the Panic of 1873 intensified financial constraints in the railroad industry and amplified the effects of the crisis on real activity. Furthermore, it identifies government subsidies (in the form of land grants) as a key factor in increasing the probability of failure for recipient railroads. The second chapter studies the role of regulatory competition between federal and state governments in promoting banking efficiency and contributing to economic growth. The results indicate that the expansion of state banking, facilitated by the passage of state-level free banking laws, decreased monopoly power in rural markets and contributed to the growth of agricultural capital and output. The final chapter, coauthored with Peter Rousseau and Matthew Jaremski, shows that silver coinage, particularly the use of silver money to back bank deposits, played an important role in allowing the national banking system to continue to expand during the 1880s and early 1890s.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07212016-165144 |
| Date | 22 July 2016 |
| Creators | Cotter, Christopher Andrew James |
| Contributors | Peter L. Rousseau, Jeremy Atack, Robert A. Driskill, David C. Parsley |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07212016-165144/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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