Banks and State Public Finance in the New Republic: The United States, 1790–1860
- 1 June 1987
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Journal of Economic History
- Vol. 47 (2) , 391-403
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700048142
Abstract
The U.S. Constitution, by taking away the power of the states to issue paper money, removed a major source of flexibility in state public finance. In their search for new sources of revenue and fiscal flexibility, the states discovered that the banks they chartered could fill the gap. Investment earnings and tax revenues derived from banks soon became major elements of state public finance. We discuss the nature of these early business-government relationships and provide the first systematic assessment of their relative importance in state finance.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Currency Finance: An Interpretation of Colonial Monetary PracticesThe William and Mary Quarterly, 1953
- Historical Sketch of the Finances and Financial Policy of Massachusetts from 1780 to 1905.The Economic Journal, 1907