Nominal Contracts in a Bimetallic Standard
利用期权定价公式评估复本位制下债务工具中的双金属期权价值，并据此调整19世纪美国国债收益率，估算债务人与债权人之间的财富转移。
As its central feature, a bimetallic standard grants nominal debtors an option to deliver either of two metals. With results from the option pricing literature, construction of a formula to evaluate the bimetallic option in debt instruments is straightforward. With this formula, one can compute the option value in a wide range of nineteenth-century U.S. Treasury securities. Posession of the option values permits an adjustment of the yields on U.S. securities to make them comparable to yields on nonmetallic European securities. Evaluating the option allows the estimation of transfers from debtors to creditors. Copyright 1986 by American Economic Association.