EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Before the Fed

Jon Moen and Mary Tone Rodgers

in Cambridge Books from Cambridge University Press

Abstract: In the 19th century the United States had no formal central bank or lender of last resort, but it did have J. P. Morgan. His unique knowledge of financial markets gave him almost omniscient knowledge for crafting solutions to financial crises. Before the Fed examines Morgan's unusual role in resolving the National Banking Era crises in the U. S., exploring the rocky relationships and ultimatums he used to settle financial panics. It traces how he learned crisis management lessons from his father, passing it along to his son in turn. Citing his own ledgers, telegrams and testimony, Jon Moen and Mary Tone Rodgers detail how Morgan applied and modified routine business practices to solve non-routine crises, managing risk and reward in emergency lending. Analyzing forty last resort loans made over his fifty-year career, the authors challenge the invincibility folklore surrounding Morgan, uncovering how he stabilized American markets when others could not.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:cbooks:9781009291545

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.cambridge ... p?isbn=9781009291545

Access Statistics for this book

More books in Cambridge Books from Cambridge University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Data Services ().

 
Page updated 2026-07-07
Handle: RePEc:cup:cbooks:9781009291545