The Gold Standard Peripheries
Monetary Policy, Adjustment and Flexibility in a Global Setting
As a world system, the gold standard knitted together minor and major
countries, sophisticated and less advanced economies through their common choice of gold
as monetary reference. This bookexplores the experience not of the main economic centres
but of the smaller, peripheral economies of the gold standard. These peripheries differed
significantly. One element, however, was common: all periphery countries were regime
takers with limited influence on the regime.
How did small countries adjust to an international monetary regime with
seemingly little room for policy autonomy?
This book highlights the diversity of the gold standard experience.
Each country differed reflecting different concerns, constraints and
challenges. However, one common theme runs through the chapters: how central banks,
representing a broad variety of peripheral experiences, were putting strong emphasis on
maintaining some freedom for manoeuvre in their monetary policy. The question was how such
flexibility was reached and maintained – a matterthat involved the highly relevant
issues of the role of international capital markets and the management of sovereign debt
by the countries involved. The book concludes with achapter on possible lessons that can
be learned from the gold standard peripheries for the Euro.
ANDERS ÖGREN is Associate Professor at UCBH - Department of
Economic History, Uppsala University and EHFF - Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. He
is also Associated Researcher at EconomiX – Université Paris Ouest and Lecturer at
Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). His most recent publications are
Convergence and Divergence of National Financial Systems: Evidence from the Gold
Standards, 1871 – 1971 (Eds. with Patrice Baubeau) and The Swedish Financial Revolution
(Ed.). He has also published in international refereed journals such as Business History,
Explorations in Economic History and Financial History Review.
LARS FREDRIK OKSENDAL is Assistant Professor at Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Norway and is currently involved in Norges Bank's
bicentenary project 1816-2016. He has published extensively on Norwegian monetary and
financial history in journals such as Financial History Review, International History
Review, Contemporary European History and the Review of International Political Economy.
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction – What is New from the Peripheries?; A.Ögren
&L.F.Öksendal
PART I: SCANDINAVIA
Central Banking and Monetary Policy in Sweden During the Long Nineteenth Century;
A.Ögren
Freedom for Manouevre. The Gold Standard Experience of Norway, 1874-1914;
L.F.Öksendal
Price Stability in the Periphery During the International Gold Standard: The
Scandinavian Case; O.Honningdal Grytten & A.Hunnes
Monetary Policy in the Nordic Countries during the Classical Gold Standard Period
– The Wicksellian View Conception; C.García-Iglesias & J.Kilponen
PART II: THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT
The Origins of Foreign Exchange Policy: The National Bank of Belgium;
S.Ugolini
Belgian Monetary Policy under the Gold Standard during the Interwar Period;
H.Van der Wee
Central Banking under the Gold Standard: The Bank of Spain, 1870-1930;
P.Martín-Acena, E.Martínez & P.Nogués-Marco
Monetary Policy in Southeast Europe on the Road to the Gold Standard;
K.Dimitrova & L.Fantacci
PART III: ASIA AND SOUTH-AMERICA
Domestic Public Debt, Gold Standard and Civil Wars: Institutional Interconnections
in 19th Century Colombia; A.M.Rojas Rivera
The Japanese Economy during the Interwar Period: Instability in the Financial
System and the Impact of the World Depression; M.Shizume
PART IV: LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE
The Euro and the Gold: What are the Lessons? A.Ögren & L.F.Öksendal
288 pages, Hardcover