2024 - "Is Deflation Cause for Panic? Evidence from the National Banking Era." Journal of Macroeconomics. 82: 1-25.

2023 - "The Myth of Wartime Prosperity: Evidence from the Canadian Experience." (with Vincent Geloso.)  Social Science Quarterly. 104(4): 377–394.

2022 - "Preferential Attachment and Carl Menger’s Theory of the Endogenous Emergence of a Medium of Exchange." Cosmos and Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. 10(5+6): 47–60.

Exceptional Growth without Curse: Reexamining Canada's Wheat Boom, 1896 to 1913. (with Jamie Bologna Pavlik and Vincent Geloso.)

The Potlatch as Memory: Ceremony and Gift-Giving along the Pacific Northwest. (with Till Gross.) 

Abstract: The Potlatch—a complex ceremony central to many Indigenous communities along the Pacific Northwest—is a unique institution that supports gift-giving as the primary way to allocate goods within these communities. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, government and church officials increasingly sought to prohibit the Potlatch, criticizing it as wasteful and irrational. To present a counter-narrative, we draw from the monetary search literature to construct a decentralized exchange model that includes endogenous recordkeeping and specialization. We posit that the Potlatch’s ceremonial elements and dramatic retellings of the past—through song, dance, and storytelling—represent investments in social memory that deter free-riding and reinforce gift-giving norms. These investments, in turn, increase the extent of the market and make specialization more attractive, suggesting that the Potlatch could enhance wealth and welfare, contrary to non-Indigenous perceptions. Our theoretical analysis combines qualitative evidence and analytic narrative to support this conclusion.

Rethinking Deflation and Its Effects: A Cross-Country Analysis of Supply-Driven Deflation. (with Bryan Cutsinger)

Abstract: Deflation is often feared for its association with depressed economic activity, financial disintermediation, and pushing nominal interest rates to their effective lower bound. This paper examines deflation during the classical gold standard period (1870–1913) when global deflation was frequent and sustained. Using data from five countries (USA, Germany, France, UK, Canada) and a sign-restricted panel VAR, we show that deflation was not always linked to declines in output or financial distress. Instead, it was often accompanied by robust economic growth, increasing real wages, and financial deepening. Our findings suggest that policymakers need not always respond aggressively to threats of deflation, especially when it is the likely result of positive supply shocks or productivity gains rather than collapses in aggregate demand.

An Exploration of Indigenous Access to Banking Services Historically in Canada: A Spatial Analysis.  (with Lawrence Schembri.)  

Abstract: This paper builds a novel dataset of the location of charted bank branches in Canada between 1840 and 1935 – between the founding of the Province of Canada via the merger of Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) and the establishment of the Bank of Canada (which ended private supply of large denomination notes). We then use this dataset to explore Indigenous communities’ access to financial services along two dimensions. First, as the branch network expanded, we test if the location of new branches relative to Indigenous communities was correlated with the community’s size and affluence. Here, we are looking to determine if chartered banks saw Indigenous communities as potential sources of customers or if they were disregarded in the location decision (possibly due to ignorance or bias). Second, we test if an Indigenous community being historically closer to a bank branch is a predictor of use of financial services and of participation in related programs to promote financial inclusion today. The proposed mechanism here is that geographic proximity to banks increases familiarity and awareness of financial institutions and, through this, helps build trust and financial acumen—a predictor of overall access to finance—which can be passed through generations over time.