金本位制下美国联邦债务的融资成本：1791-1933年
Costs of Financing U.S. Federal Debt Under a Gold Standard: 1791-1933
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2024 · [{"name": "Jonathan Payne", "affiliation": ["Princeton University"]}, {"name": "Bálint Szőke", "affiliation": ["Federal Reserve Board of Governors"]}, {"name": "George Hall", "affiliation": ["Brandeis University"]}, {"name": "Thomas J. Sargent", "affiliation": ["Hoover Institution", "New York University", "Stanford University"]}]
中文摘要
摘要：基于一个新数据集，我们推断出1791年至1933年金本位时期美国联邦债券收益率期限结构的时间序列，并利用这些估计结果重新评估了关于美国如何扩展其财政能力的历史叙事。我们表明，美国债务此前一直带有违约风险溢价，直到19世纪末才开始被定价为可替代英国债务的另一种安全资产。在南北战争期间，投资者预期美国将重返金本位，因此联邦政府得以在不面临计价风险的情况下举债。国民银行体系引入后，收益率曲线的斜率由向下转为向上，且期限不足一年的美国债务溢价随之消失。
Abstract
Abstract 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.