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The article discusses the continental dollar, the currency issued by U.S. Congress to fund the American Revolutionary War, focusing on redemption by U.S. states in the period 1779 to 1790. It examines the question of state compliance with the remittance schedule set by Congress. The author comments on depreciation, the anti-paper money attitudes of Federalists, and the question of governmental monetary powers. Other topics include reports by Continental treasurer Michael Hillegas, registrar of the U.S. treasury Joseph Nourse, and U.S. treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.

The desirability of politically creating currency unions among otherwise sovereign states is an ongoing debate. The benefits of the U.S. currency union and the benefits of other politically manufactured currency unions are assumed to be obvious, namely a reduction in monetary instability and exchange rate transaction costs within the union thereby stimulating long-run economic growth. Price indices, exchange rates and market-generated transaction data from 1748 through 1811 are used to determine when the market moved from state currencies to the U.S. dollar and to assess the non-wartime performance of prices, exchange rates, and purchasing power parity before versus this transition. The British North American colonies were the first modern western economies to experiment with large-scale government issuance of flat paper money. Colonial legislatures backed their paper money by linking it not to specie but to future taxes and mortgage payments designed to withdraw it from circulation in a timely fashion. The only continuous data for evaluating colonial/state monetary performance are price indices. Stability of prices is the hallmark of a well-managed monetary regime. New issues of state currency were constitutionally prohibited after 1787 and enough old state currency would be taken out of circulation through tax redemption by the early 1790s that the paper-money medium fell to banknotes by default.

Approximately 50,000 British convicts were sentenced to servitude and forcibly transported to America between 1718 and 1775. This transatlantic market for British convict labor was a vast experiment in privatizing posttrial criminal justice. By the early eighteenth century, removal of criminals from society was seen as a more effective deterrent to recidivism than physical chastisement. Removal of noncapital offenders through mass hangings or employment as chain gangs in England was considered too barbaric and too politically risky. Removal through imprisonment was too expensive given the absence of penitentiaries designed for long-term incarceration. Thus, banishment overseas became the preferred policy. Convict transportees were given one of only three possible sentences, namely, 7 years, 14 years, or a lifetime of banishment (74, 24, and 2 percent, respectively), which in turn became the length of their servant contracts in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which provided a market model of the convict trade and explained how economic forces shaped British penal policy regarding convict transportation between 1718-1775. Details on the model of the convict trade; Empirical analysis and hypothesis testing; Labor value of criminality; Political economy of convict transportation.

Comments on John Komlos' claim that the height of the lower segments of the English population was probably beginning to decline prior to the start of the industrial revolution. Pre-19th century example where anthropomorphic measures diverge from conventional economic measures; Argument against inferring Malthusian crises from height trends.

Analyzes the redemption system auction that has transformed the immigrant servants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1771-1804. Overview of the indenture system.

Focuses on a study which documented the redemptioner servitude or immigration financing in 18th century Pennsylvania. Rate of shipping redemptioners; Details of labor market; Migration regulation in the state.

Presents an evidence on the efficiency of forward-labor contracting in Philadelphia from 1745-1773. Significance of indentured servitude in European migration to North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Discussion on indentured migration as a private-market solution to financing the colonial migration of poor Europeans.

Presents quantitative evidence that establishes when and why Europeans stopped using servitude to finance passage to America sometime in the early 19th century. Description of the data; Annual flow of German immigrants into the U.S. from 1772 to 1835; Supply versus demand; Collapse of immigrant servant supplies after 1871; Abruptness of the collapse.

Uses education clauses of 3,478 immigrant servant contracts to measure the incidence of schooling versus informal instruction by location, age, and sex. The proportion of servants receiving education; Education expanded between 1770 and 18 00 through a net increase in schooling; New evidence from immigrant servant contracts; Conclusion.