I examine the change in prices of foreign sovereign dollar bonds over several weeks in 1930 that marked major legislative progress for the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. If the market was preoccupied by anticipated debt-repayment problems arising from the tariffs, this should be visible in the cross-countty pattern of bond prices. The bond price data are compared to indicators of country sensitivity to the tariffs and debt service. A significant relationship is found for bond price changes in June 1930, but the size of the effect is very small. Analysis at the regional and individual country level reveals some puzzling cases.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the phenomenon of economic growth. The interest was sparked by the introduction of new models by Paul Romer and Robert Lucas. The neoclassical Solow growth model, despite its influence over the years, has a fundamental flaw: growth is determined exogenously. The new models by Romer and Lucas solve for the growth rate of the economy endogenously. In these models, due to spillovers in capital or in human capital, growth can go on indefinitely. In a later work, Romer argued that increasing returns are necessary elements in models of technological innovations, which in turn form the foundation for endogenous growth models. The theoretical innovations in modeling growth stimulated a significant body of empirical work.

Although historians have described the role of Stephen Girard in the founding of the second Bank of the United States simply as that of a heavy investor in its stock, careful examination of the Girard papers and other recently discovered documents shows the usual account to be entirely inadequate. Actually Girard was one of the moving spirits of the Bank from the time of its inception in the minds of a small group of American financiers until the period of its mismanagement in 1818. Then, as chairman of the stockholders, he was largely influential in effecting the replacement of the reckless and incompetent Jones leadership with the sounder administrations of Langdon Cheves and Nicholas Biddle. Girard was a most important influence in the Bank's early history. He purchased a large amount of stock, contributed to the working out of the mechanics of operation, aided in obtaining specie from Baring Brothers & Company, London, helped determine the form and content of the charter, did yeoman service in the political battle preceding its founding, and struggled mightily, although in vain, to prevent the Bank's becoming a political football in an orgy of speculation.

Industrial growth and chronic, in many cases severe, inflation are two salient features of the past-war economic history of the larger Latin American countries. There is general recognition that the two phenomena are related, at least in the sense that industry has been one of the major recipients of state subsidies and inflationary credit. But beyond this, analysis divides into the usual demand inflation and cost-push categories.

This topic was discussed by a panel consisting of D. L. Kemmerer, JL University of Illinois; William B. Gates, Jr., Williams College; Broadus Mitchell, Rutgers University; and Thomas C. Cochran, New York University. The chairman was Edward C. Kirkland, Bowdoin College. In essence, the discussion was a criticism and evaluation of a paper by Mr. Kemmerer, the only formal presentation in the proceedings.

The pamphlet literature and the public documents of our early national period show that in spite of repeated instances of governmental interference in economic life, a great deal of thinking was being done along laissez-faire lines. This thought was unsystematic. It was pragmatic rather than philosophical, never doctrinaire, concerned primarily with defending and attacking specific measures of public policy. Nevertheless, it was serious thought, and in many instances had an important influence on legislative action. It was not restricted to any political group, but pervaded to a greater or less degree the thinking of all leaders of the community. Owing little to the teachings of contemporary European economists, American libertarianism deserves analysis as an indigenous body of theory, growing out of, and adjusted to American conditions.