Costs of Financing US Federal Debt Under a Gold Standard: 1791-1933*

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Payne, Jonathan; Szoke, Balint; Hall, George; Sargent, Thomas J.
• 署名单位: Princeton University; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors; Brandeis University; New York University; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjae028
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 793-833
• 关键词: interest-rates; term structure; yield curve; deficits; puzzle; price

摘要

From a new data set, we infer time series of term structures of yields on U.S. federal bonds during the gold standard era from 1791-1933 and use our estimates to reassess historical narratives about how the United States expanded its fiscal capacity. We show that U.S. debt carried a default risk premium until the end of the nineteenth century, when it started being priced as an alternative safe asset to U.K. debt. During the Civil War, investors expected the United States to return to a gold standard so the federal government was able to borrow without facing denomination risk. After the introduction of the National Banking System, the slope of the yield curve switched from down to up and the premium on U.S. debt with maturity less than one year disappeared.