Wars have been the main forces shaping the international trading system in the twentieth century. The early years of the twentieth century were dominated by the international gold standard. But as a result of World War I, this system was replaced by the troubled gold exchange standards of the...

The quality of the money stock declined during the banking crises of the early 1930s. Bank deposits did not serve as a secure short- term store of purchasing power for use in an emergency as well as they had previously, and during the periods of restricted deposits in late 1932 and early 1933,...

In this paper we trace the evolution of the lender of last resort doctrine - and its implementation - from the nineteenth century through the panic of 2008. We find that typically the most influential economists "fight the last war" formulating policy guidelines that would have dealt effectively...

In this paper we argue that adherence to the gold standard rule of convertibility of national currencies into a fixed weight of gold served as `a good housekeeping seal of approval' which facilitated access by peripheral countries to foreign capital from the core countries of western Europe. We...