Marc Flandreau

The Gold Standard in Theory and History.

Since the successful first edition of The Gold Standard in Theory and History was published in 1985, much new research has been completed. This updated version contains five new essays including: * post 1990 literature on exchange rate target zones * a discussion of the light shed by the gold standard on the European Monetary Union debate * a new introduction by Eichengreen with Marc Flandreau This will be an invaluable resource for students of macroeconomics, international economics and economic history at all levels.

The rise and fall of the dollar (or when did the dollar replace sterling as the leading reserve currency

We present new evidence on the currency composition of foreign exchange reserves in the 1920s and 1930s. Contrary to the presumption that the pound sterling continued to dominate the U.S. dollar in central bank reserves until after World War II, we show that the dollar first overtook sterling in the mid-1920s. This suggests that the network effects thought to lend inertia to international currency status and to create incumbency advantages for the dominant international currency do not apply in the reserve currency domain. Our new evidence is similarly incompatible with the notion that there is only room in the market for one dominant reserve currency at a point in time. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of interwar monetary history but also for the prospects of the dollar and the euro as reserve currencies.

Stability without a pact? Lessons from the European gold standard, 1880—1914

The high level of trade and financial integration reached by Europe both today and under the late 19th century gold standard suggests that important lessons can be learned by looking at past record to inform current issues. In this article, we draw a fresh picture of the European gold standard, and use it to derive a number of useful implications. The paper’s basic finding is that the stability of the European gold standard depended on the stance of the common monetary policy. Under the gold standard, this stance was disturbingly deflationary prior to 1895. As a result, debts became exceedingly heavy and monetary standards crumbled under their weight, not so much because fiscal policies became looser, but rather because debt burdens became unsustainable in the wake of continued deflation. Once gold was discovered and deflation gave way to inflation, real interest rates fell and debt grew more slowly. This study’s clear implication for the EMU zone, is that stability will hinge on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) policy not being too restrictive.

The Geography of the Gold Standard

In this paper we chart the geography of the gold standard. We highlight the late date of the move to gold and the variety of transition strategies. Whether a country with a currency convertible into specie operated a gold, silver or bimetallic standard at mid-century depended not so much on whether it was rich or poor as on the monetary standard of the foreign country or countries to which its transactions were linked. When it came to the distinction between specie convertibility and inconvertibility, however, domestic economic conditions came into play. In particular, there was a strong correlation between economic development, as proxied by the level of per capita incomes, and possession of a convertible currency.Most countries went onto the gold standard between the 1870s and the first decade of the twentieth century. We enumerate the factors propelling this transition and analyse variations in its timing. Factors shaping the course of this transition include the level of economic development, the magnitude of reserves relative to world specie markets, whether reserves were concentrated at the central bank, and the presence or absence of imperial ties.

The French Crime of 1873: An Essay on the Emergence of the International Gold Standard, 1870–1880

This article attempts to provide a new view of how the bimetallic standard was maintained before 1873 and how it came to change into a monometallic gold standard between 1870 and 1880. The conventional view that the gold standard emerged out of the contradictions of bimetallism is not persuasive. Instead, this article claims that bimetallism might have survived and provides an alternative explanation of the emergence of the gold standard. Political and historical factors proved essential in precipitating the uncoordinated emergence of the international gold standard.

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Rise of the Dollar as an International Currency, 1914–1939

This paper provides new evidence on the rise of the dollar as an international currency, focusing on its role in the conduct of trade and the provision of trade credit. We show that the shift to the dollar occurred much earlier than conventionally supposed: during and immediately after World War I. Not just market forces but also policy support - the Fed in its role as market maker - was important for the dollars overtaking of sterling as the leading international currency. On balance, this experience challenges the popular notion of international currency status as being determined mainly by market size. It suggests that the popular image of strongly increasing returns and pervasive network externalities leaving room for only one monetary technology is misleading.

The Empirics of International Currencies: Network Externalities, History and Persistence*

Using a new database for the late nineteenth century, when the pound sterling was the worlds leading international currency, this article provides evidence on the empirical determinants of international currency status. We report evidence in favour of the search-theoretic models to international currencies. Using a microeconomic model of currency choice, we provide empirical support to strategic externalities. We find strong confirmation of the existence of persistence, but reject the view that the international monetary system was subject to pure path dependency and lock-in effects, suggesting that, even in the absence of WWI, the USD was bound to overtake sterling.

The Spread of Empire: Clio and the Measurement of Colonial Borrowing Costs

Modern cliometric studies use dummy variables to measure the effects of institutions. The dummy variable approach can be misleading, as illustrated by recent research on the impact of colonial rule on borrowing terms. We show how trying to measure a ‘colonial effect’ without an analysis of the financial consequences of political subjection can be misleading. The main effect of the British Empire was to remove the default risk. Establishing how this was done, and with what effects, should take us closer to a proper understanding of the effect of empire.

Bilateral Treaties and the Most-Favored-Nation Clause: The Myth of Trade Liberalization in the Nineteenth Century

Textbook accounts of the Anglo-French trade agreement of 1860 argue that it heralded the beginning of a liberal trading order. This alleged success holds much interest from a modern policy point of view, for it rested on bilateral negotiations and most-favored-nation clauses. With the help of new data on international trade (the RIC ardo database), the authors provide empirical evidence and find that the treaty and subsequent network of MFN trade agreements coincided with the end of a period of unilateral liberalization across the world. They also find that it did not contribute to expanding trade at all. This is contrary to a deeply rooted belief among economists, economic historians, and political scientists. The authors draw a number of policy lessons that run counter to the conventional wisdom and raise skepticism toward the ability of bilateralism and MFN arrangements to promote trade liberalization.

The economics and politics of monetary unions: a reassessment of the Latin Monetary Union, 1865 71

In 1865, France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland signed a monetary convention (later known as the Latin Union), which provided for the intercirculation of specie between member states. Conventional analyses of the treaty (such as that by Willis) have portrayed this arrangement as a by-product of French power politics. This article seeks to reinterpret the economic nature of the Latin Union, focusing on the interrelations between trade, finance and money. I argue that the Latin Union did not foster trade integration and that, as a matter of fact, such was not its objective, according to archival evidence. Instead, I suggest that the Latin Union was the result of the growth of France as a major supplier of capital. The need to provide French investors with exchange-rate guarantees led borrowing countries to tie their respective monetary systems to that of France. This, in turn, created opportunities for international monetary action and the French franc became the ‘natural’ focal point of projects of monetary unification. This evolution, however, had structural limits which help to explain the downfall of the projects for expansion of the Latin Union.