The National Bank of Moldova, as well as a number of other central banks in the world, has formulated as basic objective the price stability, and otherwise limiting foreign exchange interventions. These interventions are carried out in strict accordance with the objectives of foreign policy and...

Global economic trade is often argued to be as old as trade. The question of the nature of the exchange is the issue. While tin from England may have reached Sumeria 4,000 years ago, or Phoenicians' ships entered the Africa area of Cape Palmas at about the same time, the problem of exchange is a...

This paper proposes new measures of the effectiveness of inflation targeting (IT) and evaluates its main drivers in a (large) sample of advanced economies (AEs) and emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Using synthetic control methods, we find that IT has heterogeneous effects on...

Gianni Toniolo was one of Italy's, and Europe's, foremost economic historians. Unfortunately, he suddenly passed away in November 2022, a few weeks after he had presented in Rome his newest book, the first volume of his history of the Bank of Italy, Storia della Banca d'Italia. Tomo I....

In this paper I am going to explore some of the major theoretical concepts and ideas in Luca Fantacci's work devoted to the history of money. As a historical check on Fantacci's theory I will present various moments in Russian monetary history interpreted in the light of the ideas of the La...

In early monetary systems the unit of account was separate from the medium of exchange. Commodity prices and prices of coins were quoted in terms of a fixed quantity of metal that was embodied by an 'index coin'. Coins circulated at their metal value because coinage was imperfect and fixed...

Based on a critical review of the leading theories of money, this paper argues that ‘money-like' assets used throughout history to finally settle obligations, including commodities and state-debt, are ‘settlement assets' and that settlement assets should be explicitly recognised as a new and...

This paper deals with the relationship between deflation and economic growth. Although there are numerous theories on the potential effects of deflation on real output, empirical evidence in this field is still scarce and partial. In order to explore the relationship between prices and output in...