The Index covers the four published volumes of the author's essays.--The coöperative commonwealth.--The forgotten man (1883)--Bibliography (p. [497]-518)--Index. Preface.--Protectionism, the -ism which teaches that waste makes wealth (1885)--Tariff reform (1888)--What is free trade? (1886)--Protectionism twenty years after (1906)--Prosperity strangled by gold (1896)--Cause and cure of hard times (1896)--The free-coinage scheme is impracticable at every point (1896)--The delusion of the debtors (1896)--The crime of 1873 (1896)--A concurrent circulation of gold and silver (1878)--The influence of commercial crises on opinions about economic doctrines (1879)--The philosophy of strikes (1883)--Strikes and the industrial organization (1887)--Trusts and trade-unions (1888)--An old "trust" (1889)--Shall Americans own ships? (1881)--Politics in America, 1776-1876 (1876)--The administration of Andrew Jackson (1880)--The commercial crisis of 1837 (1877 or 1878)--The science of sociology (1882)--Integrity in education.--Discipline.
Collectively, mankind has never had it so good despite periodic economic crises of which the current sub-prime crisis is merely the latest example. Much of this success is attributable to the increasing efficiency of the world's financial institutions as finance has proved to be one of the most important causal factors in economic performance. In a series of insightful essays, financial and economic historians examine how financial innovations from the seventeenth century to the present have continually challenged established institutional arrangements, forcing change and adaptation by governments, financial intermediaries, and financial markets. Where these have been successful, wealth creation and growth have followed. When they failed, growth slowed and sometimes economic decline has followed. These essays illustrate the difficulties of co-ordinating financial innovations in order to sustain their benefits for the wider economy, a theme that will be of interest to policy makers as well as economic historians.