미국 자유은행시대의 은행 패닉에 관한 연구

In this paper, we examined the main characteristics of the banking panics in the Free Banking Era(1837-1862). There were the panics of 1837, 1839, 1857 and 1861 in this era. We excluded the panic of 1861 in our analysis, because it was caused by the Civil War. First, the panic of 1837 was caused by the Specie Circular and the Surplus Distributions of the federal government. In 1838, it was speedily recovered as a result of the abolition of the Specie Circular and the movements of the Surplus Distributions to state governments. Second, the panic of 1839 was caused by the crisis in western public finance. And the shock of its continued during four years from 1839 to 1843, because of the contraction of money supply by the western state default and the problems of the state-chartered banking system. Third, the panic of 1857 was originated from the drop of farm prices, because the brokers that invested in the western lands and railroads securities became insolvent in consequence the drop of its. But by summer in 1858, it was speedily recovered owing to the extension of liquidity by a clearinghouse. Specially, the dimensions of credit expansion before panic periods did not largely affected the intensities and maintenances of the panics in this period.