Howard Bodenhorn''s State Banking in Early America studies the financial experimentation that took place in the United States between 1790 and 1860. Dr. Bodenhorn''s book explores regional differences in banking structures, which bear indirectly in the conection between financial and economic development. If a single theme emerges, it is that the United States benefitted from its free banking philosophy in which state governments, rather than a centralized authority, created financial structures designed to serve specific, local needs. Thus decentralized federalism provided state legislatures with a great deal of flexibility in their individual approaches to economic and financial issues. The important lessons to be learned from Dr. Bodenhorn''s historical account are that successful banking systems are flexible, predictable, and incentive-compatible; they meet the needs of the borrowers, depositors and shareholders, and they reduce downside risks to generally agreed upon levels. These lessons imply that we cannot, a priori, define an optimal, one-size-fits-all banking system. We need to know something about the formal and informal institutions underlying an economy and about the risk preferences of its citizenry. Historically, outsiders view Americans as experimenters and risk takers. Nowhere is this experimentation and risk taking more apparent than in early American banking policies.

This manuscript represents the first book-length treatment of early American banking in over 40 years. During that time economic historians have offered new interpretations of several important developments in antebellum American banking practice and policy. Such features of early American financial markets as free banking, branch banking, deposit insurance, and micro-banking have been radically reinterpreted since Redlich and Hammond wrote. Moreover, economic theory has made significant advances, and this manuscript incorporates those theoretical insights into every chapter. The so-called "information-theoretic" approach links the chapters into a unified whole. Early sections of each chapter synthesize the extant research; later sections present extensions, new finding and new interpretations.

Howard Bodenhorn''s State Banking in Early America studies the financial experimentation that took place in the United States between 1790 and 1860. Dr. Bodenhorn''s book explores regional differences in banking structures, which bear indirectly in the conection between financial and economic development. If a single theme emerges, it is that the United States benefitted from its free banking philosophy in which state governments, rather than a centralized authority, created financial structures designed to serve specific, local needs. Thus decentralized federalism provided state legislatures with a great deal of flexibility in their individual approaches to economic and financial issues. The important lessons to be learned from Dr. Bodenhorn''s historical account are that successful banking systems are flexible, predictable, and incentive-compatible; they meet the needs of the borrowers, depositors and shareholders, and they reduce downside risks to generally agreed upon levels. These lessons imply that we cannot, a priori, define an optimal, one-size-fits-all banking system. We need to know something about the formal and informal institutions underlying an economy and about the risk preferences of its citizenry. Historically, outsiders view Americans as experimenters and risk takers. Nowhere is this experimentation and risk taking more apparent than in early American banking policies.

South Carolina's Indian-American governor Nikki Haley recently dismissed one of her principal advisors when his membership to the ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to light. Among the CCC's many concerns is intermarriage and race mixing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God. " Beyond the irony of a CCC member working for an Indian-American, the episode reveals America's continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing.The Color Factor shows that the emergent twenty-first-century recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of light-skinned, mixed-race people represents a "back to the future " moment---a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America that dates to its founding. Each chapter addresses from a historical perspective a topic in the current literature on mixed-race and color. The approach is economic and empirical, but the text is accessible to social scientists more generally. The historical evidence concludes that we will not really understand race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were shaped by race mixing.

Despite the many advances that the United States has made in racial equality over the past half century, numerous events within the past several years have proven prejudice to be alive and well in modern-day America. In one such example, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina dismissed one of her principal advisors in 2013 when his membership in the ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to light. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God." This episode reveals America''s continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing-a problem that has plagued the United States since its earliest days as a nation.The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South demonstrates that the emergent twenty-first-century recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of light-skinned, mixed-race people represent a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America that dates to its founding. Economist Howard Bodenhorn presents the first full-length study of the ways in which skin color intersected with policy, society, and economy in the nineteenth-century South. With empirical and statistical rigor, the investigation confirms that individuals of mixed race experienced advantages over African Americans in multiple dimensions - in occupations, family formation and family size, wealth, health, and access to freedom, among other criteria.The Color Factor concludes that we will not really understand race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were shaped by race mixing. The text is an ideal resource for students, social scientists, and historians, and anyone hoping to gain a deeper understanding of the historical roots of modern race dynamics in America.

Despite the many advances that the United States has made in racial equality over the past half century, numerous events within the past several years have proven prejudice to be alive and well in modern-day America. In one such example, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina dismissed one of her principal advisors in 2013 when his membership in the ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to light. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God." This episode reveals America''s continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing-a problem that has plagued the United States since its earliest days as a nation.The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South demonstrates that the emergent twenty-first-century recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of light-skinned, mixed-race people represent a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America that dates to its founding. Economist Howard Bodenhorn presents the first full-length study of the ways in which skin color intersected with policy, society, and economy in the nineteenth-century South. With empirical and statistical rigor, the investigation confirms that individuals of mixed race experienced advantages over African Americans in multiple dimensions - in occupations, family formation and family size, wealth, health, and access to freedom, among other criteria.The Color Factor concludes that we will not really understand race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were shaped by race mixing. The text is an ideal resource for students, social scientists, and historians, and anyone hoping to gain a deeper understanding of the historical roots of modern race dynamics in America.

Previous banking histories have focused on the money supply function of early American banks and its connection to the recurrent boom-bust cycle of the antebellum era. This history focuses on the credit generating function of American banks It demonstrates that banks aggressively promoted development rather than passively followed its course. Using previously unexploited data, Professor Bodenhorn shows that banks helped to advance the development of incipient industrialization. Additionally, he shows that banks formed long-distance relationships that promoted geographic capital mobility, thereby assuring that short-term capital was directed in socially desirable directions, that is, where it was most in demand. He then traces those institutional and legal developments that allowed for this capital mobility. The result was that America was served by an efficient system of financial intermediaries by the mid-nineteenth century.

Howard Bodenhorn''s State Banking in Early America studies the financial experimentation that took place in the United States between 1790 and 1860. Dr. Bodenhorn''s book explores regional differences in banking structures, which bear indirectly in the conection between financial and economic development. If a single theme emerges, it is that the United States benefitted from its free banking philosophy in which state governments, rather than a centralized authority, created financial structures designed to serve specific, local needs. Thus decentralized federalism provided state legislatures with a great deal of flexibility in their individual approaches to economic and financial issues. The important lessons to be learned from Dr. Bodenhorn''s historical account are that successful banking systems are flexible, predictable, and incentive-compatible; they meet the needs of the borrowers, depositors and shareholders, and they reduce downside risks to generally agreed upon levels. These lessons imply that we cannot, a priori, define an optimal, one-size-fits-all banking system. We need to know something about the formal and informal institutions underlying an economy and about the risk preferences of its citizenry. Historically, outsiders view Americans as experimenters and risk takers. Nowhere is this experimentation and risk taking more apparent than in early American banking policies.

This manuscript represents the first book-length treatment of early American banking in over 40 years. During that time economic historians have offered new interpretations of several important developments in antebellum American banking practice and policy. Such features of early American financial markets as free banking, branch banking, deposit insurance, and micro-banking have been radically reinterpreted since Redlich and Hammond wrote. Moreover, economic theory has made significant advances, and this manuscript incorporates those theoretical insights into every chapter. The so-called "information-theoretic" approach links the chapters into a unified whole. Early sections of each chapter synthesize the extant research; later sections present extensions, new finding and new interpretations.

Howard Bodenhorn''s State Banking in Early America studies the financial experimentation that took place in the United States between 1790 and 1860. Dr. Bodenhorn''s book explores regional differences in banking structures, which bear indirectly in the conection between financial and economic development. If a single theme emerges, it is that the United States benefitted from its free banking philosophy in which state governments, rather than a centralized authority, created financial structures designed to serve specific, local needs. Thus decentralized federalism provided state legislatures with a great deal of flexibility in their individual approaches to economic and financial issues. The important lessons to be learned from Dr. Bodenhorn''s historical account are that successful banking systems are flexible, predictable, and incentive-compatible; they meet the needs of the borrowers, depositors and shareholders, and they reduce downside risks to generally agreed upon levels. These lessons imply that we cannot, a priori, define an optimal, one-size-fits-all banking system. We need to know something about the formal and informal institutions underlying an economy and about the risk preferences of its citizenry. Historically, outsiders view Americans as experimenters and risk takers. Nowhere is this experimentation and risk taking more apparent than in early American banking policies.

South Carolina's Indian-American governor Nikki Haley recently dismissed one of her principal advisors when his membership to the ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to light. Among the CCC's many concerns is intermarriage and race mixing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God. " Beyond the irony of a CCC member working for an Indian-American, the episode reveals America's continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing.The Color Factor shows that the emergent twenty-first-century recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of light-skinned, mixed-race people represents a "back to the future " moment---a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America that dates to its founding. Each chapter addresses from a historical perspective a topic in the current literature on mixed-race and color. The approach is economic and empirical, but the text is accessible to social scientists more generally. The historical evidence concludes that we will not really understand race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were shaped by race mixing.

Despite the many advances that the United States has made in racial equality over the past half century, numerous events within the past several years have proven prejudice to be alive and well in modern-day America. In one such example, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina dismissed one of her principal advisors in 2013 when his membership in the ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to light. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God." This episode reveals America''s continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing-a problem that has plagued the United States since its earliest days as a nation.The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South demonstrates that the emergent twenty-first-century recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of light-skinned, mixed-race people represent a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America that dates to its founding. Economist Howard Bodenhorn presents the first full-length study of the ways in which skin color intersected with policy, society, and economy in the nineteenth-century South. With empirical and statistical rigor, the investigation confirms that individuals of mixed race experienced advantages over African Americans in multiple dimensions - in occupations, family formation and family size, wealth, health, and access to freedom, among other criteria.The Color Factor concludes that we will not really understand race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were shaped by race mixing. The text is an ideal resource for students, social scientists, and historians, and anyone hoping to gain a deeper understanding of the historical roots of modern race dynamics in America.

Despite the many advances that the United States has made in racial equality over the past half century, numerous events within the past several years have proven prejudice to be alive and well in modern-day America. In one such example, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina dismissed one of her principal advisors in 2013 when his membership in the ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to light. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God." This episode reveals America''s continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing-a problem that has plagued the United States since its earliest days as a nation.The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South demonstrates that the emergent twenty-first-century recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of light-skinned, mixed-race people represent a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America that dates to its founding. Economist Howard Bodenhorn presents the first full-length study of the ways in which skin color intersected with policy, society, and economy in the nineteenth-century South. With empirical and statistical rigor, the investigation confirms that individuals of mixed race experienced advantages over African Americans in multiple dimensions - in occupations, family formation and family size, wealth, health, and access to freedom, among other criteria.The Color Factor concludes that we will not really understand race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were shaped by race mixing. The text is an ideal resource for students, social scientists, and historians, and anyone hoping to gain a deeper understanding of the historical roots of modern race dynamics in America.

Previous banking histories have focused on the money supply function of early American banks and its connection to the recurrent boom-bust cycle of the antebellum era. This history focuses on the credit generating function of American banks It demonstrates that banks aggressively promoted development rather than passively followed its course. Using previously unexploited data, Professor Bodenhorn shows that banks helped to advance the development of incipient industrialization. Additionally, he shows that banks formed long-distance relationships that promoted geographic capital mobility, thereby assuring that short-term capital was directed in socially desirable directions, that is, where it was most in demand. He then traces those institutional and legal developments that allowed for this capital mobility. The result was that America was served by an efficient system of financial intermediaries by the mid-nineteenth century.