In this paper we speculate about the evolution of the international monetary system in the last 2/3 of the 20th century absent the Great Depression but present the major post-Depression political and economic upheavals: WWII and II and the Cold War. We argue that without the Depression the...

We distinguish between good and bad deflations. In the former case, falling prices may be caused by aggregate supply (possibly driven by technology advances) increasing more rapidly than aggregate demand. In the latter case, declines in aggregate demand outpace any expansion in aggregate supply....

Interconnections between banking crises and fiscal crises have a long history. We document the long-run evolution from classic banking panics towards modern banking crises where financial guarantees are associated with crisis resolution. Recent crises feature a feedback loop between bank...

Our paper examines Charles Goodhart's work on the history of monetary institutions: central bank operations under the gold standard, their behaviour in relation to the financial system in which they functioned, including their responses to banking crises, and their performance as lenders of last...

In this paper we analyze the operation of the inter-war gold exchange standard to see if the evident credibility of the system conferred on participating central banks the ability to pursue independent monetary policies. To answer this question we econometrically analyze two key parity, or...

This paper examines the recently noted finding that the Classical gold standard represented a credible, well-behaved target zone system from the perspective of the well-documented failure of countries to play by the rules of the game in the classical period. In particular, we test an hypothesis...

We compare the resumption of convertibility into gold by the United States in 1879 and Britain in 1925 to ascertain the degree to which the outcomes reflected differences in strategies adopted by the authorities or in the external environment. It is concluded that external factors were the most...

Deflation has had a bad rap, largely based on the experience of the 1930's when deflation was synonymous with depression. Recent experience with declining prices in Japan and China together with the concern over deflation in Europe and the United States has led to renewed attention to the topic...