The gold standard was a monetary system based on fixed exchange rates, whereby domestic prices were pegged to the international price level and a high level of control had to be exercised over the money supply. This meant that fiscal discipline also had to be maintained for a country to remain...

Can fixed exchange rate regimes cause output divergence among member states? We show that such divergence is a long-run equilibrium characteristic of a two-region model with fixed exchange rates, heterogeneous labor markets, and endogenous growth. Under flexible exchange rates, monetary policy...