21 – Hugh Rockoff on Optimal Currency Areas, "Yellowbacks," and Free Banking

Hugh Rockoff is a professor of economics at Rutgers University and has done extensive work in U.S. monetary history. He joins the show to discuss the criteria for an ideal monetary union and argues that the U.S. didn't really become an optimal currency area until the 1930s. David and Hugh then discuss whether a present-day example, the Eurozone, fits these criteria. They also talk about interesting chapters in U.S. monetary history, including the Civil War, the Free Banking Era, and the bimetallism debate of the late 1800s. [To learn more about the upcoming conference, Monetary Rules for a Post-Crisis World, co-hosted by the Mercatus Center and the Cato Institute, and register, please click the link below. You can also watch the conference online by clicking the link.] http://mercatus.org/monetaryconference?utm_source=MacroMusingsPodcast&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=MonetaryRules David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Hugh Rockoff's homepage: http://econweb.rutgers.edu/rockoff/ David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Related links History of the American Economy by Hugh Rockoff and Gary M. Walton https://www.amazon.com/History-American-Economy-Economics-Titles/dp/1111822921 "How Long Did It Take the United States to Become an Optimal Currency Area?" (National Bureau of Economic Research) http://www.nber.org/papers/h0124 "The Wizard of Oz as a Monetary Allegory" (The Journal of Political Economy) https://www.unc.edu/~salemi/Econ006/Rockoff.pdf The Free Banking Era: A Re-Examination (Dissertations in American Economic History) https://www.amazon.com/Free-Banking-Era-Re-Examination-Dissertations/dp/0405072155