Testing for the Economic Impact of the US Constitution: Purchasing Power Parity Across the Colonies versus Across the States, 1748-1811

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Delaware; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050710000070
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 118-145
• 关键词: price-index

摘要

The U.S. Constitution removed real and monetary trade barriers between the states. By contrast, these states when they were British colonies exercised considerable real and monetary sovereignty over their borders. Purchasing power parity is used to measure how much economic integration between the states was gained in the decades after the Constitution's adoption compared with what existed among the same locations during the late colonial period. Using this measure, the short-run effect of the Constitution on economic integration was minimal. This may have been because the Constitution did not eliminate all the institutional barriers to interstate trade before 1812.