Research

Published Articles
  • “Signals and Stigmas from Banking Interventions: Lessons from the Bank Holiday of 1933” (With Gary Richardson and Angela Vossmeyer) Forthcoming in Journal of Financial Economics.
  • “Interbank Networks and the Interregional Transmission of Financial Crises: Evidence from the Panic of 1907” (With David Wheelock) Forthcoming in Journal of Economic History.
  • “Étudier la démocratisation de l’actionnariat américain” (Studying the democratization of American shareholding). Forthcoming Revue d'économie financière.
  • “The Puzzling Persistence of Financial Crises: A Selective Review of 2,000 Years of Evidence” (With Charles Calomiris) Journal of Financial Intermediation Vol. 58 (2024), 101090.
  • “Bank Risk and Stockholding (1910-1934)” Cliometrica Vol. 18-1 (2024), pp.221-249.
  • “Florida (Un)Chained” (With Charles Calomiris) Journal of Financial Intermediation Vol. 55 (2023), 101043.
  • “Liquidity Requirements, Free-Riding, and the Implications for Financial Stability Evidence from the early 1900s” (With Mark Carlson) Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking Vol. 55-1 (2023), pp. 323-341.
  • “The U.S. Postal Savings System and the Collapse of B&Ls During the Great Depression” (with Sebastian Fleitas and Steven Sprick Schuster) Southern Economic Journal Vol. 89-4 (2023): pp. 1196-1215.
  • “When Uncle Sam Introduced Main Street to Wall Street: Liberty Bonds and the Transformation of American Finance” (With Eric Hilt and Wendy Rahn) Journal of Financial Economics 145.1 (2022): pp. 194-216.
  • “Interbank Connections, Contagion and Bank Distress in the Great Depression” (With Charles Calomiris and David Wheelock) Journal of Financial Intermediation Vol. 51 (2022).
  • “Early Fertility Decline in the United States: Tests of Alternative Hypotheses using New Complete-Count Census Microdata and Enhanced County-Level Data” (With Michael Haines and J. David Hacker) Research in Economic History Vol. 37 (2021).
  • “U.S. Banking Concentration, 1820-2019” (With Caroline Fohlin) Economics Letters Vol. 190 (2020). 
  • “Banking on the Boom, Tripped by the Bust: Banks and the World War I Agricultural Price Shock” (With David Wheelock) Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking Vol. 52 (2020): pp. 1719-1754.
  • “Did the U.S. Postal Savings System Reach the Unbanked? An Empirical History” (With Steven Sprick Schuster and Elisabeth Ruth Perlman) Social Science History Vol 44 (2020): pp. 667-696.
  • “The Founding of the Federal Reserve, the Great Depression and the Evolution of the U.S. Interbank Network” (With David Wheelock) Journal of Economic History Vol. 80 (2020), pp. 69-99.
  • “Today’s Economic History and Tomorrow’s Scholars” Cliometrica Vol. 14-1 (2020), pp. 169-180.
  • “Faire Appel À L'Histoire Pour Mettre Au Jour Les Causes Et Less Conséquences De L'Assurance Dépôts (Using History to Uncover the Causes and Consequences of Deposit Insurance)” (With Charles Calomiris) Revue d'économie financière Vol. 136 (2020), pp. 377-383.
  • “Stealing Deposits: Deposit Insurance, Risk-Taking and the Removal of Market Discipline in Early 20th Century Banks” (With Charles Calomiris) Journal of Finance Vol. 74.2 (2019), pp. 711-754.
  • “Competition, Business Cycles, and Price Flexibility in Grocery Stores" (With PJ Glandon) Economics Letters Vol. 181 (2019), pp. 137-139.
  • “Populists at the Polls: Economic Factors in the 1896 U.S. Presidential Election” (With Barry Eichengreen, Michael Haines, and David Leblang) Research in Economic History Vol. 35 (2019), pp. 91-131.
  • “The (Dis)Advantages of Clearinghouses Before the Fed” Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 127 (2018), pp. 435-458.
  • “How was the Quantitative Easing Program of the 1930s Unwound?” (With Gabriel Mathy) Explorations in Economic History Vol. 69 (2018), pp. 27-49.
  • “Liquidity Risk, Bank Networks, and the Value of Joining the Fed” (With Haelim Anderson, Charles Calomiris, and Gary Richardson) Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking Vol. 50 (2018), pp. 173-201.
  • “The Dawn of an ‘Age of Deposits’ in the United States” (With Peter Rousseau) Journal of Banking and Finance Vol. 87 (2018), pp. 264-281.
  • “Did Inequality in Farm Sizes Lead to Suppression of Banking and Credit in the Late Nineteenth Century?” (With Price Fishback) Journal of Economic History Vol. 78 (2018), pp. 155-195.
  • “Banker Preferences, Interbank Connections, and the Enduring Structure of the Federal Reserve System” (With David Wheelock) Explorations in Economic History Vol. 66 (2017), pp. 21-43.
  • “Understanding the Cyclical Nature of Financial Intermediation Costs” (With Ayse Sapci) Southern Economic Journal Vol. 84 (2017), pp. 181-201.
  • “Looking Back on the Age of Checking in America, 1800-1960” (with Gabriel Mathy) Revista de la Historia de la Economía y de la Empresa Vol. XI (2017), pp. 41-74.
  • “Deposit Insurance: Theories and Facts” (With Charles Calomiris) Annual Review of Financial Economics Vol. 8 (2016), pp. 97-120.
  • “The Competition and Coexistence of Mutual and Commercial Banks in New England, 1870-1914” (With Brady Plastaras) Cliometrica Vol. 10 (2016), pp. 151-179.
  • “The Evolution of Bank Supervisory Institutions: Evidence from American States” (With Kris Mitchener) Journal of Economic History Vol. 75 (2015), pp. 819-859.
  • “Clearinghouses as Credit Regulators Before the Fed” Journal of Financial Stability Vol. 17 (2015), pp. 10-21.
  • “Introduction au régime de banque libre aux États-Unis (An Introduction to Free Banking in the United States)” Revue d'économie financière Vol. 117 (2015), pp. 245-248.
  • “American Banking and the Transportation Revolution Before the Civil War” (With Jeremy Atack and Peter Rousseau) Journal of Economic History Vol. 74 (2014), pp. 943-986.
  • “Sales and Firm Entry: The Case of Wal-Mart” (With PJ Glandon) Southern Economic Journal Vol. 81 (2014), pp. 168-192.
  • “National Banking's Role in U.S. Industrialization, 1850-1900” Journal of Economic History Vol. 74 (2014), pp. 109-140.
  • “State Banks and the National Banking Acts: Measuring the Response to Increased Financial Regulation, 1860–1870” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking Vol. 45 (2013), pp. 379-399.
  • “Banks, Free Banks, and Economic Growth” (With Peter Rousseau) Economic Inquiry Vol. 51 (2013), pp. 1603-1621.
  • “Legacy, Location, and Labor: Accounting for Racial Differences in Postbellum Cotton Production” (with Neil Canaday) Explorations in Economic History Vol. 49 (2012), pp. 291-302.
  • “Estimating Antebellum Passenger Costs: A Hub-and-Spoke Approach” Historical Methods Vol. 45 (2012), pp. 93-101.
  • “Bank-Specific Default Risk in the Pricing of Bank Note Discounts” Journal of Economic History Vol. 71 (2011), pp. 950-975.
  • “Free Bank Failures: Risky Bonds vs. Undiversified Portfolios” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking Vol. 42 (2010), pp. 1565-1587.

Book Chapters
  • “Banking and Monetary Policy up to the Formation of the Federal Reserve” (With Peter Rousseau) in The Oxford Handbook of American Economic History. Edited by Louis P. Cain, Price V. Fishback, and Paul W. Rhode. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
  • “Privately Issued Money in the US.” In Handbook of the History of Money and Currency. Edited by Stefano Battilossi, Youssef Cassis, and Kazuhiko Yago. Singapore: Springer, 2018.
  • “Did Railroads Make Antebellum U.S. Banks More Sound? Linking Rail Locations With Bank Balance Sheets and Survival Rates” (With Jeremy Atack and Peter Rousseau) in Enterprising America: Business, Banks, and Credit Markets in Historical Perspective. Edited by William Collins and Robert A. Margo, 149-178. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
  • “The Cliometric Study of Financial Panics and Crashes” in Handbook of Cliometrics, Edited by Claude Diebolt and Michael Haupert. Berlin: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2015.

Book Reviews
  • Review of Anne L. Murphy’s Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth Century Bank of England. Princeton University Press, 2023. Forthcoming Journal of Economic Literature.
  • Review of Joshua R. Greenberg’s Bank Notes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic. Journal of Economic History Vol. 81 (2021), pp. 1267-1268.
  • Review of Jane Ellen Knodell’s The Second Bank of the United States: “Central” banker in an era of nation-building, 1816-1936. Journal of Economic History Vol. 77 (2017), pp. 1234-1236.
  • Review of Paul Kahn’s The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for American Finance. Journal of Economic History Vol. 77 (2017), pp. 613-614.
  • Review of Randall E. Parker and Robert Whaples’ Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History. Journal of Economic Literature Vol. 54 (2016), pp. 601-602
  • Review of Nicholas Crafts and Peter Fearon’s The Great Depression of the 1930s: Lessons for Today. Journal of Economic Literature Vol. 52 (2014), pp. 541-542.
  • Review of Michael J Hightower’s Banking in Oklahoma Before Statehood. Journal of Economic History Vol. 74 (2014), pp. 1239-1241. 
  • Review of Kenneth D. Garbade’s Birth of a Market: The U.S. Treasury Securities Market from the Great War to the Great Depression. Economic History Review Vol. 66 (2013), pp. 1219-1220.

Working Papers
  • “Inflation, War Bonds, and the Rise of Republicans in the 1950s” (With Gillian Brunet and Eric Hilt)
  • “How Micro- and Macro- Governance Failures Cause Financial Crises” (With Charles Calomiris)
  • “Assessing the Effects of the WWII Bond Drives on Household Savings” (With Gillian Brunet and Eric Hilt)
  • “Theodore Roosevelt, the Election of 1912 and the Founding of the U.S. Central Bank” (With David Wheelock)
  • “Deposit Insurance, Uninsured Depositors, and Liquidity Risk During Panics” (With Steven Sprick Schuster)
  • “‘Invest!’: Liberty Bonds and Stock Ownership over the Twentieth Century” (With Gillian Brunet and Eric Hilt)
  • “Quantifying Wildcat Banking” (With Jeremy Atack)

Archival and Data Collection Projects
  • National Bank Balance Sheets – Comptroller of the Currency – 1865-1941
  • State Bank Balance Sheets – Various State Banking Department Records – 1863-1940
  • Bank Balance Sheets - Various Bankers Directories – 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915, 1919, 1925, 1929, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970
  • Locations of National Banks, State Banks, and Trust Companies – Various Bankers Directories –1860-1925, 1929, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970
  • Locations of U.S. Clearinghouses – Various Bankers Directories – 1852-1914, 1919, 1929, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970
  • Monthly Clearinghouse Clearings By City – Dunn’s Review and Bradstreet’s Weekly – 1889-1930
  • Quarterly Business Failures By State – Dunn’s Review and Bradstreet’s Weekly – 1894-1931
  • U.S. Passenger Costs – Various Travel Directories – 1837, 1849, 1856, 1859, 1867
  • Interbank Deposit Connections – Various Bankers Directories – 1890, 1893, 1897, 1900, 1907, 1910, 1919, 1929, 1940

Policy Review Articles