We describe in this essay why the gold standard and the euro are extreme forms of fixed exchange rates, and how these policies had their most potent effects in the worst peaceful economic periods in modern times. While we are lucky to have avoided another catastrophe like the Great Depression in...

We discuss three well known plans that were offered in the twentieth century to provide an artificial replacement for gold and key currencies as international reserves: Keynes' Bancor, the SDR and the Ecu( predecessor to the euro).The latter two of these reserve substitutes were...

We test whether fixed exchange rate regimes are ever credible in emerging markets by analyzing the behavior of short-term domestic trade bills across countries during the classical gold standard period, the most widely used hard peg in modern financial history. We exploit the fact that global...

Why did policymakers adopt the gold standard? Although previous research has identified ex post effects of gold standard adoption on trade and bond yields, few studies have sought to understand whether these were the actual outcomes of interest to policymakers at the time of adoption. We examine...

The Great Depression was marked by a severe outbreak of protectionist trade policies. But contrary to the presumption that all countries scrambled to raise trade barriers, there was substantial cross-country variation in the movement to protectionism. Specifically, countries that remained on the...

We develop a simple model that highlights the costs and benefits of fixed exchange rates as they relate to trade, and show that negative export-price shocks reduce fiscal revenue and increase the likelihood of an expected currency devaluation. Using a new high-frequency data set on...

In this paper I revisit the period leading to the abandonment of the gold standard by the U.S. in 1933. I analyze what the important players – and in particular FDR and the members of the advisory group known as the “Brains Trust” – thought about the gold standard. My conclusion is that...

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...

We study Japanese investments between 1980 and 1992 to assess the effectiveness of state promotion efforts in light of strong agglomeration economies in Japanese investment. Two policy variables are consistently shown to influence the location of investment - foreign trade zones and labor...

This paper investigates the divisional investment policies of diversified firms. We find that investment of the smallest division of diversified firms is significantly related to the cash flow of the other segments. We then show that the smallest division's investment is more sensitive to the...