Classical Gold Standard Era Research Articles

Lending of Last Resort in Monetary Unions

The European Central Bank’s activities as lender of last resort are especially controversial in Germany. The overriding concern of the critics is an alleged tendency of creating moral hazard on the side of public and private borrowers in the European Monetary Union. This contrasts with the predominant views among German economists in the classical gold standard era, when the newly founded German empire merged the many currency areas in its realm into monetary union. Prominent experts and policy advisors, such as Erwin Nasse, Adolph Wagner and Friedrich Bendixen, argued that in view of the costs of system failures moral hazard ought not to be a predominant consideration at times of crisis. In critical assessments of the Currency vs. Banking debates in England, German commentators questioned the credibility and sustainability of strict rules for monetary policy in banking crises. Some even developed evolutionary views, in which monetary integration is driven by financial markets and lending of last resort becomes a constitutive characteristic of central banking, in particular in the formation of a monetary union. This paper compares the older German views about lending of last resort in monetary unions with the current discourse and explores possible explanations for the differences.

Pegxit pressure

We analyze whether trade shocks put pressure on pegs to break. Using new high-frequency data on prices and export portfolios from the classical gold standard era, we identify a negative causal relationship between export-price shocks and currency-risk premia in emerging market economies. The results indicate that negative export-price shocks increased the probability that countries would abandon their pegs.

The political economy of exchange rate stability during the gold standard. The case of Spain, 1874-1914

This article contributes to the literature on central bank independence and monetary stability during the classical gold standard era. On the eve of the First World War, European periphery had not achieved stable adherence to gold despite the protection of central banks against political pressures to monetize debt. In the 19th century, most issuing institutions were private banks whose main objective was profit maximization. As a result, monetary stability depended on negotiations between monetary and fiscal authorities and not directly on central bank independence as is the case nowadays. Strong governments were needed to impose the objective of monetary stability on central banks in negotiation practices. To test our argument, we have constructed indicators of government strength and central bank independence to measure bargaining power for the case of Spain. Results confirm that a highly independent private central bank avoided the responsibility of defending gold adherence when negotiating with weak government, even in a stable macroeconomic environment. Our research suggests that the success of central bank independence in generating monetary stability during the gold standard period depended on sound political institutions.

Purchasing power parity and the behavior of prices and nominal exchange rates across exchange-rate regimes

The evidence presented in this paper shows that purchasing power parity as a long-run proposition is indeed a very useful approximation. We see this quite clearly in the panel data for three historical periods examined here – the classical gold standard era from 1870 to 1914, the interwar period from 1921 to 1939, and the period after World War II from 1959 to 1998. Price-level behavior across countries differs in the way that PPP suggests when monetary arrangements differ and is highly similar when monetary arrangements are themselves similar. Inflation rates adjusted for exchange rate changes in general are highly correlated and bear a one-to-one relation to one another within and across the three periods and the varied monetary regimes that prevailed.

Estimation of historical inflation expectations

Expected inflation is a central variable in economic theory. Economic historians have estimated historical inflation expectations for a variety of purposes, including studies of the Fisher effect, the debt deflation hypothesis, central bank credibility, and expectations formation. I survey the statistical, narrative, and market-based approaches that have been used to estimate inflation expectations in historical eras, including the classical gold standard era, the hyperinflations of the 1920s, and the Great Depression, highlighting key methodological considerations and identifying areas that warrant further research. A meta-analysis of inflation expectations at the onset of the Great Depression reveals that the deflation of the early 1930s was mostly unanticipated, supporting the debt deflation hypothesis, and shows how these results are sensitive to estimation methodology.

Was the Classical Gold Standard Credible on the Periphery? Evidence from Currency Risk

We use a standard metric from international finance, the currency risk premium, to assess the credibility of fixed exchange rates during the classical gold standard era. Theory suggests that a completely credible and permanent commitment to join the gold standard would have zero currency risk or no expectation of devaluation. We find that, even five years after a typical emerging-market country joined the gold standard, the currency risk premium averaged at least 220 basis points. Fixed-effects, panel-regression estimates that control for a variety of borrower-specific factors also show large and positive currency risk premia. In contrast to core gold standard countries, such as France and Germany, the persistence of large premia, long after gold standard adoption, suggest that financial markets did not view the pegs in emerging markets as credible and expected that they devaluation.

The Bank of England as the World Gold Market-Maker During the Classical Gold Standard Era, 1889-1910

This paper studies the microfoundations of the so-called device policy by analysing a new dataset on the Bank of England's operations in the gold market at the heyday of the classical gold standard. It explains that devices must be understood in connection to the Bank's role as gold market-maker in London and to the position of London as world gold market. Contrary to the literature, the paper shows that devices were sophisticated monetary policy tools intended to complement – not to substitute – interest rate policy and aimed at smoothing – not at hampering – international adjustment. These findings demonstrate the potential of adopting a microstructural approach to the study of monetary policy, and call for a reassessment of efficiency measurement for the gold standard.

Irving Fisher and Price‐Level Targeting in Austria: Was Silver the Answer?

The question of price level versus inflation targeting remains controversial. Disagreement concerns not so much the desirability of price stability but rather the means of achieving it. Irving Fisher argued for a commodity dollar standard where the purchasing power of money was fixed by indexing it to a basket of commodities. We show that movements in the price of silver closely track the movements in overall prices during the classical gold standard era. The one‐to‐one relationship between paper and silver bonds suggests that a simple “silver rule” could have sufficed to fix the purchasing power of money.

WAS THE GOLD STANDARD REALLY DESTABILIZING?

SUMMARYThis paper investigates the extent to which the high macroeconomic volatility experienced in the classical Gold Standard era of US history can be attributed to the monetary policy regime per se as distinct from other shocks. For this purpose, we estimate a small dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the classical Gold Standard era. We use this model to conduct a counterfactual experiment to assess whether a monetary policy conducted on the basis of a Taylor rule characterizing the Great Moderation data would have led to different outcomes for macroeconomic volatility and welfare in the Gold Standard era. The counterfactual Taylor rule significantly reduces inflation volatility, but at the cost of higher real‐money and interest‐rate volatility. Output volatility is very similar. The end result is no welfare improvement. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Uncovering uncovered interest parity during the classical gold standard era, 1888–1905

This paper examines the uncovered interest parity hypothesis using the dollar-sterling exchange rate during the gold standard era. This period is interesting because the exchange rate was seasonal, because transactions costs were high, and because occasions when uncovered interest rate speculation did not occur can be identified. The paper shows UIP speculation frequently did not occur, that speculation was most active in response to expected exchange rate changes not interest differentials when it did occur, and that profitability varied systematically with interest rate differentials. The estimated UIP equations are substantially improved by distinguishing occasions when sterling was borrowed not lent.

Uncovering Uncovered Interest Parity During the Classical Gold Standard Era, 1888-1905

This paper examines the uncovered interest parity hypothesis using the dollar-sterling exchange rate during the gold standard era. This period is interesting because the exchange rate was seasonal, because transactions costs were high, and because occasions when uncovered interest rate speculation did not occur can be identified. The paper shows UIP speculation frequently did not occur, that speculation occurred more in response to expected exchange rate changes than interest rate differentials, and that profitability varied systematically with interest rate differentials. The estimated UIP equations are substantially improved by distinguishing occasions when sterling was borrowed not lent.

Globalization and changing patterns in the international transmission of shocks in financial markets

This paper compares the strength of, and patterns in the transmission of shocks, and currency crises during two periods of globalization—the pre-WWI classical gold standard era, 1880–1914, and the post-Bretton Woods era, 1975–2001. Our results suggest that financial market shocks were more globalized before 1914 compared to the present. We postulate that this difference in systemic stability between the two eras reflects factors such as strong cross-country interdependence fostered through links to gold, the growing financial maturity of advanced countries, and the widening of the center to include a more diverse group of countries spanning several regions.

Paper money but a gold debt: Italy on the gold standard

For most of the classical gold standard era, Italy was not formally committed to gold, instead the lira “shadowed” gold. The remarkable stability of the lira exchange rate raises the question of why Italy did not move to official convertibility when it could have gained gold standard benefits at a seemingly low cost. The answer to this puzzle lies in the management of the Italy’s large foreign debt. Although denominated in lire, holders of the debt had the privilege of converting their coupons into gold at the official exchange rate in Paris. This arrangement offered the government an opportunity to temporarily exploit domestic bondholders who found it difficult to circumvent the barriers to arbitrage. In times of fiscal problems, the government gained some seignorage while the lira was allowed a limited depreciation. Shadowing the official gold rate, lost some of the possible benefits of convertibility but gave the government fiscal flexibility.

Exchange-Rate Regimes and International Trade: Evidence from the Classical Gold Standard Era

In this paper we show that the spread of the classical gold standard in the late nineteenth century increased international trade flows. This positive effect was compounded whenever a group of countries formed a monetary union. Applying the gravity model of trade to more than 1,100 country pairs during the 1870-1910 period, we find that two countries on gold would trade 60 percent more with each other than with countries on a different monetary standard. Moreover, a monetary union would more than double bilateral trade flows. Our findings are relevant for current discussions on alternative monetary arrangements for the twenty-first century.