The prison-house unmasked : in a letter to Her Most Gracious Majesty shewing that arrest and imprisonment for debt are violations of Magna Charta, and therefore illegal : and also the cruelty and inutility of the present system.

Mode of access: Internet.

Imprisonment for debt alike injurious to creditor and debtor being an essay taken from a work entitled Punishment without crime, and addressed particularly to creditors, traders, and men of property /

Mode of access: Internet.

[ Warrant for the arrest of Samuel Gray for debt], 1769

A warrant for the arrest and sale of all assets of Gray who was found to owe another merchant Alexander Hill in a recent trial. Also includes appraisal of property by Fairfield and Salter and statement by Sheriff Cudworth.

The Judaic-law : as opposed to English military-law, gaol-for-debt-law, the pauper-law, and factory-slave-law /

Goldsmiths'-Kress no. 30666.20.

Letters to family members, 1799

Four letters dated March 11, 1799, written from debtors' prison ("Debtors' Apartment") in Philadelphia. Includes descriptions of his life in the prison and fellow prisoners.

Lawyer's case book containing notes of cases adjudged and determined in the courts of Delaware, 1793-1796

Lawyer's case book containing notes on cases before the Delaware Supreme Court and Delaware Court of Common Pleas. Contains information on the cases and judgements.

Notes on cases in Boston and Springfield, 1790-1793

Notes by unknown author on cases of land rights, debt, and theft.

Samuel Hazlet puts in his place James Duane his attorney against Thomas Dignel in a plea of trespass against the case, 1757

Title from verso.

Records of cases before the Mayor's Court of Albany, 1786-1796

Contains a summary of cases before the court beginning with the litigants and the damages sought, the legal action, names of counsel, actions taken, and the final disposition of the case. Most actions taken relate to debt, assault and battery, and slander and libel. At the back of the manuscript are "an account of law books by me purchased in the year 1784 & 1785" [p. 120], and"a list miscellanious books bought in the year 1784 & 1785" [p. 132].

A sketch of the origin and progress of the Humane society of the city of New York : together with the act of incorporation and by-laws, & c.

Mode of access: Internet.

An account of the rise, progress, and present state of the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts throughout England and Wales /

Includes bibliographical references.

Traité de la contrainte par corps, en matière civile, de commerce, criminelle, correctionnelle et de simple police, telle qu'elle était chez les romains, telle qu'elle a été en France avant et depuis la révolution, et telle qu'elle s'exerce d'après les dispositions du Code Napoléon, du Code de procédure civile, du Code de commerce et des lois pénales; suivi des lois et décrets organiques de la Cour des comptes, de la Banque de France et de ses succursales, et terminé par le texte du Code de commerce, d'après l'édition officielle.

"Catalogue des livres nouveaux qui se vendent chez Maugeret fils ... à Paris": p. 423-426.

Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal?

We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity premium, sustainability, and service smoothing. We use a dynamic-equilibrium model with tax distortions and government outlays uncertainty, and model maturity as the fraction of debt that needs to be rolled over every period. In the model, the benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. We then calibrate our artificial economy and solve for the optimal debt maturity for Brazil as an example of a developing country and the US as an example of a mature economy. We obtain that the calibrated costs from defaulting on long-term debt more than offset costs associated with short-term debt. Therefore, short-term debt implies higher welfare levels.

Optimal reserve management and sovereign debt

Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. However, given the sovereign`s willingness-to-pay incentive problems, reserve accumulation may reduce sustainable debt levels. In addition, assuming constant debt levels does not allow addressing one of the puzzles behind using reserves as a means to avoid the negative effects of crisis: why do not sovereign countries reduce their sovereign debt instead? To study the joint decision of holding sovereign debt and reserves, we construct a stochastic dynamic equilibrium model calibrated to a sample of emerging markets. We obtain that the reserve accumulation does not play a quantitatively important role in this model. In fact, we find the optimal policy is not to hold reserves at all. This finding is robust to considering interest rate shocks, sudden stops, contingent reserves and reserve dependent output costs. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nominal versus indexed debt: A quantitative horse race

The main arguments in favor and against nominal and indexed debts are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion, government outlays uncertainty, and contingent-debt service. Our framework also recognizes that contingent debt can be associated with incentive problems and lack of commitment. Thus, the benefits of unexpected inflation are tempered by higher interest rates. We obtain that costs from inflation more than offset the benefits from reducing tax distortions. We further discuss sustainability of nominal debt in developing (volatile) countries. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.