Thomas J. Sargent is Donald Lucas Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. A pioneer of the rational expectations school of macroeconomics, he is the author of The Conquest of American Inflation (Princeton), Bounded Rationality in Macroeconomics, and Dynamic Macroeconomic Theory. François R. Velde is Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago and Lecturer in Economics at the University of Chicago.

"[H]istorically-minded readers will have traversed an insightful and entertaining exploration of European monetary history and of the writings of early monetary thinkers . . . with as much enjoyment in the reading as the authors seem to have taken in the research and writing."---Robert W. Dimand, History of Economic Ideas --- "A remarkable book. . . . The Big Problem of Small Change is an impressive piece of scholarship that should be of interest to most economists, not just to economic historians. It offers a coherent model of money that helps explain a recurring problem that can arise with a commodity of money system and that provides the basis for understanding a solution to this problem."---Arthur J. Rolnick and Warren E. Weber, Journal of Political Economy --- "This is an important and wide-ranging book, which will reshape the way in which we think of the origins of modern money and modern monetary theory. It is . . . so well organized that the lay reader can get the message simply by reading the fascinating narrative and taking for granted the mathematical account of the standard formula, presented in two chapters at the conclusion. It is also splendidly illustrated and beautifully produced."---Harold James, Times Literary Supplement --- "[The authors'] design serves as a temple for the conduct of research in economics as an empirical science. They have done it just right. Their book is strongly recommended." --- "This elegantly written, scholarly work will appeal to those interested in financial history or monetary theory." --- "This fascinating new history of money shows that the key ingredients of a sound currency were identified in Europe hundreds of years ago. The mystery is why, even today, so many governments fail to put this knowledge to work." --- "The core of [the] story is a mathematical model, in this case one that captures possible solutions to the small-change puzzle, including the correct one. . . . For centuries, authorities sensed that economic health depended on the steady, predictable availability of currency. But they did not understand how to realize this goal. Messrs. Sargent and Velde deserve credit for revealing how the correct model came into being. . . . More than a penny for their thoughts."---Paul Podolsky, The Wall Street Journal --- "Winner of the 2003 for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Business Management & Accounting, Association of American Publishers" --- "Thomas J. Sargent, Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economics"