The international gold standard of the late nineteenth century has been described as a system of 'spontaneous order', capturing the idea that its architects at the time were fashioning domestic monetary systems which created a system of fixed exchange rates almost as a by-product. In contrast...

This note extends the theory of the revenue maximizing rate of monetary growth to the case of a temporary suspension of convertibility. It also suggests a methodology for the interpretation of monetary behavior during historical periods of inconvertibility. First we analyze the case of a...

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....

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...

Three possible explanations for the emergence of the Canadian central bank in 1935 are examined: that it reflected the need of competitive banking systems for a lender of the last resort; that it was necessary to anchor the unregulated Canadian monetary system after the abandonment of the gold...

On the seventieth birthday of the Bank of Canada, we evaluate the Bank's contribution to monetary policy in an international context. We focus on: the reasons for the establishment of the central bank in 1935, its unique record of floating in a sea of fixed currencies under Bretton Woods; its...

In January 1929 the Canadian government suspended gold exports and began a floating exchange rate regime that endured until the onset of World War 11. In sharp contrast with the experience of other countries which left the gold standard, deflation and declining economic activity continued in...