Farley Grubb of University of Delaware reviews “The Forgotten Financiers of the Louisiana Purchase: European Bankers, the US, and the Rise of International Finance” by Larry Neal. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Examines the financial details of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, focusing on the role played by key actors and companies in bringing about financial innovation and facilitating a transaction that doubled the size of the original United States and helped set the country on a path to global power.”

The War for Independence (1775-1783) left the federal government deeply in debt. The spoils from winning that war also gave it an empire of land. So, post-1783 was the federal government solvent, or at what point did it become solvent? Did winning the war, in effect, pay for the war? While these questions have not been addressed before, knowing the answer is important for understanding why a particular method was chosen for funding the national debt, how the new Constitution adopted by Congress in 1789 affected public finance, and how this new untried government - that was deeply in debt and had been in default on this debt for half a decade after independence - could garner an excellent credit rating by the early 1790s. Evidence is gathered on the government's liabilities and assets to estimate its net worth and so answer these questions.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Creating the U.S. Dollar Currency Union, 1748-1811: A Quest for Monetary Stability or a Usurpation of State Sovereignty for Personal Gain? by Farley Grubb. Published in volume 93, issue 5, pages 1778-1798 of American Economic Review, December 2003

The Market Evaluation of Criminality: Evidence from the Auction of British Convict Labor in America, 1767-1775 by Farley Grubb. Published in volume 91, issue 1, pages 295-304 of American Economic Review, March 2001

State "Currencies" and the Transition to the U.S. Dollar: Reply-Including a New View from Canada by Farley W. Grubb. Published in volume 95, issue 4, pages 1341-1348 of American Economic Review, September 2005