Introduction
Interest Rates and the Coming of the American Revolution
Early U.S. Constitutions as Solutions to the Principal-Agent Problem
Financial Development, Economic Growth, and Political Stability
Banks and the "Revolution" of 1800
Credit Analysis and the Prevalence of Dueling
Financial Markets and the Subjugation of Women
Postscript
References
Index

Policy historian Robert E. Wright (Ph.D., SUNY Buffalo) has (co)authored 24 books, including The First Wall Street (Chicago 2005), One Nation Under Debt (McGraw Hill 2008), and The Wall Street Journal Guide to the 50 Economic Indicators That Really Matter (HarperCollins 2011). He taught courses in business, economics, and policy at Temple, Virginia, New York, and Augustana universities before joining the American Institute for Economic Research in January 2021. He has appeared on C-SPAN, Fox Business, and other broadcast outlets and been featured in Barron's, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Modern financial theories enable us to look at old problems in early American Republic historiography from new perspectives. Concepts such as information asymmetry, portfolio choice, and principal-agent dilemmas open up new scholarly vistas. Transcending the ongoing debates over the prevalence of either community or capitalism in early America, Wright offers fresh and compelling arguments that illuminate motivations for individual and collective actions, and brings agency back into the historical equation.
Wright argues that the Colonial rebellion was in part sparked by destabilizing British monetary policy that threatened many with financial insolvency; that in areas without modern financial institutions and practices, dueling was a rational means of protecting one's creditworthiness; that the principle-agent problem led to the institutionalization of the U.S. Constitution's system of checks and balances; and that a lack of information and education induced women to shift from active business owners to passive investors. Economists, historians, and political scientists alike will be interested in this strikingly novel and compelling recasting of our nation's formative decades.