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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

This article provides an analysis of the economic cost incurred by the world through the use of the fiat international reserve currency since the end of the 1971 gold standard system. The article uses the Quantity Theory of Money to provide an empirical manifestation of how reserve currency...

Purpose The purpose is to market a reinterpretation of Brazilian economic history highlighting the importance of non-tradable goods to understand major historical developments such as the lack of industrialization in the mining boom; the rise and contribution of industries to development in the...

"In 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony became the first government in the Western world to print paper money, the imagery for which initiated an indigenous American art form of remarkable dynamism and originality. After the Revolutionary War, disillusioned by how quickly its promiscuous printing...

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 Hoffert, in The Politics of Tension, describes the national narrative myth as “a homogenized” account of the events surrounding the calling of the Convention. Hoffert writes, “By starting their national story in 1787, American (historians) schooled themselves on a homogenized...

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...

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...

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...

The origins of money and the foundations of state control -- Coinage, credit, and the financial revolution -- The revolutionary nature of money in British North America and the American Republic -- The revolutionary nature of money in Chinese, Islamic, and late colonial history -- The political...

This paper attempts to provide, for the first time, a survey of the construction of estimates of the quantity of money in Greece since the inception of the National Bank of Greece in 1842 until the eve of WWII. Specifically, we describe in detail the methods of construction and the sources of...

The South-Eastern European Monetary History Network (SEEMHN) is a community of financial historians, economists and statisticians, established in April 2006 at the initiation of the Bulgarian National Bank and the Bank of Greece. Its objective is to spread knowledge on the economic history of...

The paper looks at the National Bank of Romania’s issue of banknotes from 1880 through 1914, highlighting the developments in the notes’ cover, the channels whereby the central bank put its notes into circulation, as well as the behaviour of the issuing house during episodes of crisis. The...

On February 24-25, 2006 an international workshop on “Regional and International Currency Arrangements” was held in Vienna. It was co-sponsored by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Bank of Greece, and jointly organized by Eduard Hochreiter and George Tavlas. Academic economists and...