Colonial North Carolina’s Paper Money Regime, 1712-1774: A Comment on Cutsail and Grubb

Abstract

In a recent NBER paper, Cutsail and Grubb argue that North Carolina’s colonial bills of credit were valued like discount bonds, with a current market value largely determined by the discounted value of the bills when paid into the treasury in taxes or other public payments. Grubb has previously published several papers making similar claims about other colonies. This comment argues Cutsail and Grubb’s methodology, history, data series, and econometrics, as applied to North Carolina, are all seriously flawed.