Contributors; 1. Introduction Michael D. Bordo and Roberto Cortés-Conde; Part I. The Old World: 2. The origins and development of stable fiscal and monetary institutions in England Forrest Capie; 3. France and the failure to modernize macroeconomic institutions Eugene N. White; 4. The Netherlands in the New World: the legacy of European fiscal, monetary and trading institutions for New World development from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries Jan DeVries; 5. Fiscal and monetary institutions in Spain (1600-1900) Gabriel Tortella and Franciso Comín; 6. War, taxes, and gold: the inheritance of the real Jorge Braga de Macedo, Álvaro Ferreira da Silva and Rita Martins de Sousa; Part II. The New World: 7. The United States: financial innovation and adaptation, Richard Sylla; 8. The legacy of French and English fiscal and monetary institutions for Canada Michael D. Bordo and Angela Redish; 9. Mexico: from colonial fiscal regime to liberal financial order, 1750-1912 Carlos Marichal and Marcello Carmagnani; 10. Property rights and the fiscal and financial systems in Brazil: colonial heritage and the imperial period Marcelo de Paiva Abreu and Luis A. Corrêa do Lago; 11. Argentina: from colony to nation: fiscal and monetary experience of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Roberto Cortés-Conde and George T. McCandless; 12. Continuities and discontinuities in the fiscal and monetary institutions of New Granada, 1783-1850 Jaime U. Jaramillo, Adolfo R. Maisel and Miguel M. Urrutia; Part III. Commentaries: 13. The state in economic history Herschel I. Grossman; 14. Reflections on the collection Albert Fishlow; Index.