During the 1790s, European investors began to purchase substantial quantities of US government and corporate securities. A number of these securities were traded in markets on both sides of the Atlantic. Based on market price quotations we compiled for the same securities in London and New York markets, we ask if these early trans-Atlantic securities markets were integrated, and, if so, when they became integrated. We find little evidence of market integration before 1816, and substantial evidence of it thereafter. Financial globalization – the convergence of financial asset prices in markets on different continents – began earlier than most have suspected.

Farley W. Grubb's recent papers on the early U.S. monetary system would be important contributions to the common currency area literature were not most of their historical assertions questionable and their key assumption—that the medium of exchange can be inferred from the unit of account—dubious. We contend that after 1781 most Americans eschewed government paper money in favor of fullbodied coins and convertible bank liabilities and that, contrary to Grubb's claim, bankers did not foist the constitutional clause banning state emissions onto an unsuspecting public.