Interest Rates and the Coming of the American Revolution --
A Brief Review of British Mercantile Policies and Their Impact on Colonial Money Supplies --
Interest Rates in Colonial America --
Balance-Sheet Deterioration --
The Causes of the American Revolution: A Cost-Benefit Approach --
Early U.S. Constitutions as Solutions to the Principal-Agent Problem --
The Theory of Information Asymmetry --
Information Asymmetry in the Colonial Era --
The Simultaneous Emergence of Political and Corporate Governance --
Constitutional Methods for Limiting Agency Problems in Government --
Constitutional Failures: Pennsylvania's First Constitution and the Articles of Confederation --
Constitutional Successes: New York's First Constitution and the U.S. Constitution --
Financial Development, Economic Growth, and Political Stability --
Precursors and Precedents --
The U.S. Financial Revolution, 1787-1800 --
Evidence of Financial-Sector Efficiency and Sophistication, 1790-1850 --
Evidence of Relative Size and Importance --
Banks and the "Revolution" of 1800 --
A Short History of Banking in Eighteenth-Century America --
Artisanal Demand for Bank Discounts --
The Manhattan Company and Bank --
Burr, the Bank, and the Crucial Assembly Election --
Further Evidence of the Commercial Republican Revolution --
Credit Analysis and the Prevalence of Dueling --
How Institutional Lenders Reduced Information Asymmetry --
A Bloodier, More Personal "Solution" --
Nineteenth-Century Residues of "Character"-Based Lending --
The commercialization of business information --
Financial markets and the subjugation of women --
The early U.S. financial system --
An economic history of information --
Female business ventures --
Changes in female investment patterns --
Decreased access to information and bank credit.
