Recent crises have cast doubt on the legitimacy of technocratic power, yet its role in global economic governance remains poorly understood. Revisiting the collapse of Bretton Woods, we propose a dynamic theory of global monetary governance to explain how expanding central bank discretion can...

The notion of a nation-specific inflation trauma among the German population is ubiquitous in the public debate in Germany and beyond. According to a widespread reading of history because of its experience with hyperinflation in 1923, the Germans not only fear rising prices but favor a...

Debates about the nature and economic role of money are mostly informed by evidence from the 20th century, but money has existed for millennia. We argue that there are many lessons to be learned from monetary history that are relevant for current topics of policy relevance. The past acts as a...

The notion of a nation-specific inflation trauma among the German population is ubiquitous in the public debate in Germany and beyond. Because of its experience with hyperinflation in 1923, the German population fears rising prices and favors stability-oriented monetary as well as fiscal policy....

Recent crises have cast doubt on the legitimacy of technocratic power, yet its role in global economic governance remains poorly understood. Revisiting the collapse of Bretton Woods, we propose a dynamic theory of global monetary governance to explain how expanding central bank discretion can...

In the Hellenistic era, there was widespread convergence to the Attic standard and a similar narrowing of coin types in terms of aesthetics. The competition between issuers resulted in an equilibrium in which improvements to the consistency and quality of money were sought after. This...

This working paper integrates the credit money approach (associated with Post Keynesian endogenous money theory) with the state money approach (associated with Modern Money Theory) by drawing on Wray's 1990 book (Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies: The Endogenous Money Approach, Edward...

To sustain a protracted war after losing foreign loans and reserves and being sanctioned by the Allies, Japan used its 'internal financing mechanism' to gobble up civilian capital through government bonds, unbacked paper currency and interest rate interventions. These tactics aggrandised the...

The notion of a nation-specific inflation trauma among the German population is ubiquitous in the public debate in Germany and beyond. According to a widespread reading of history because of its experience with hyperinflation in 1923, the Germans not only fear rising prices but favor a...

Debates about the nature and economic role of money are mostly informed by evidence from the 20th century, but money has existed for millennia. We argue that there are many lessons to be learned from monetary history that are relevant for current topics of policy relevance. The past acts as a...

Keynesian-inspired macro regulation gained importance in West German economic policy from the mid-1960s and was enshrined in law through the Stability and Growth Act in 1967. In the context of the legislative process, the question arose as to what extent the Deutsche Bundesbank should be given...

The annual announcement of monetary targets which the Deutsche Bundesbank started in 1974 is considered a core element of German monetary policy after the end of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates. The paper asks to what extent this reorientation was shaped by monetarist ideas and...

In this article I have analysed the long-term relationship between US M2 money supply and the price of gold per troy ounce using Engle-Granger cointegration. The analysis shows the existence of long-term price dependency of gold in relation to US M2 money supply. M2 was used in two variants,...

This paper evaluates the relationship between monetary and fiscal policy and the relative effectiveness of macroeconomic stabilization through the lens of Modern Money Theory (MMT). We articulate previously-neglected aspects of monetary sovereignty to offer a new interpretation of the Bernanke...

Keynesian-inspired macro regulation gained importance in West German economic policy from the mid-1960s and was enshrined in law through the Stability and Growth Act in 1967. In the context of the legislative process, the question arose as to what extent the Deutsche Bundesbank should be given...

The annual announcement of monetary targets which the Deutsche Bundesbank started in 1974 is considered a core element of German monetary policy after the end of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates. The paper asks to what extent this reorientation was shaped by monetarist ideas and...

We present a financial history of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) using a new dataset derived from the Bank of England minutes. We argue that the war and the associated actions of the Bank of England led to a transformation of the financial system. Additionally, while there was short-term...

Using newly collected discount rate data for six Swiss cities, we find no evidence of increasing integration during a 30-year period of lightly regulated free banking. We attribute this to two structural issues: banks had incentives to protect their local monopolies, and the inherent instability...

The Federal Reserve is commonly depicted as an institution set up by domestic actors to fulfill domestic functions that only later took on international and geopolitical dimensions. Yet we have long had an abundant literature on the financial projection of US power (“Dollar Diplomacy”) in...

Using newly collected discount rate data for six Swiss cities, we find no evidence of increasing integration during a 30-year period of lightly regulated free banking. We attribute this to two structural issues: banks had incentives to protect their local monopolies, and the inherent instability...

Today all countries have fiat money issued by a central bank. There is no obligation by a central bank to exchange its money for gold or any other good. Central banks have the monopoly to issue central bank money and have the power to create their money out of nothing. Creating such a monetary...

This case study of the Illinois banking market shows how the private market managed the crisis in the banknote market during the first year of the Civil War. Banknotes backed by southern bonds started their decline with the election of Lincoln causing their values to fall below par. The Illinois...

The nature of money continues to perplex us. Over time anthropologists, economists, historians and sociologists have provided various answers to the question "what is money?" Ultimately these answers reflect different and often contradictory approaches to the dynamics of economic systems and...

The notion of a nation-specific inflation trauma among the German population is ubiquitous in the public debate in Germany and beyond. Because of its experience with hyperinflation in 1923, the German population fears rising prices and favors stability-oriented monetary as well as fiscal policy....

Robert Triffin (1911-1993) was one of the main protagonists in the international monetary debates in the postwar period. He became famous with his book Gold and the Dollar Crisis, published in 1960, in which he predicted the end of the Bretton Woods system. In his analysis there, Triffin was...

Does money naturally emerge from barter as our economic textbooks suggest, or is it a ``creature of the state"? Significant historical evidence supports the state theory. However, recent findings from excavations of the prehistoric town of Provadia indicate that salt, a good unique in its high...

In this paper we examine the role played by cash in crime. Our sources include research papers by economists (which point to a link between cash and corruption/shadow economy), works by crime scholars, and reports by international institutions and law enforcement agencies. Overall, opinions...

Central banks can operate with negative equity, and many have done so in history without undermining trust in fiat money. However, there are limits. How negative can central bank equity be before fiat money loses credibility? We address this question using a global games approach motivated by...

We consider the debut of a new monetary instrument, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Drawing on examples from monetary history, we argue that a successful monetary transformation must combine microeconomic efficiency with macroeconomic credibility. A paradoxical feature of these...

Central banks have been considering the introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The theoretical literature indicates that this may influence private banks' lending activity and their profitability with implications for financial stability. To provide empirical evidence on this...