South-Eastern European Monetary and Economic Statistics from the Nineteenth Century to World War II

Most of the available literature on economic and monetary history deals with the advanced countries of Western Europe and the United States of America. The monetary and financial history of South-Eastern Europe, however, is still largely unexplored. So far, historical study of the monetary policy pursued by these countries has not been systematic. A key drawback was the lack of reliable data. The South-East European Monetary History Network (SEEMHN) brings together financial and monetary historians, economists, statisticians and archivists both from the national central banks and academia. Its goal is to promote knowledge about SEE monetary history and policy. It is viewed as an international collaboratory on measuring money, banking and finance across time and across countries. Knowledge is promoted and experience is exchanged only when they are based on reliable data. Good policy making should be grounded on good data. Recognising the need for reliable data as a basis for empirical studies, the Bank of Albania, the Bank of Greece, the Bulgarian National Bank, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, the National Bank of Romania, the National Bank of Serbia and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank have cooperated since 2006 to establish a database of 19th and 20th century monetary and financial data for South-Eastern Europe. All task force members acknowledge that this goal could only be achieved by combining forces and exchanging knowledge and experience. Therefore, the SEEMHN DCTF involved cooperation between representatives from all SEE national central banks and scholars who are specialised on different fields, geographical regions and time periods. Its first results concern a new statistics publication entitled South-Eastern European Monetary and Economic Statistics from the Nineteenth Century to World War II, which contains a newly compiled, built and harmonised dataset of long-run key monetary and macroeconomic time series. This data volume aims at filling this gap by shedding light on the monetary history of the individual countries in South-Eastern Europe and of the region as a whole. By making this historical database available to a wider audience, the SEEMHN hopes to motivate researchers to further investigate financial and monetary economics of South-Eastern Europe. The volume is foreworded by Yannis Stournaras, Governor of the Bank of Greece, Ivan Iskrov, Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, Mugur Constantin Isarescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, and Ewald Nowotny, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, as well as three high-profile scholars: Michael Bordo (Rutgers University and NBER), Luis A. V. Catao (International Monetary Fund and Joint Vienna Institute) and Nicos Christodoulakis (Athens University of Economics and Business). Free access is available on the websites of: Bank of Greece http://www.bankofgreece.gr/Pages/en/Publications/Studies/seemhn.aspx http://www.bankofgreece.gr/Pages/en/Statistics/default.aspx Bank of Albania http://www.bankofalbania.org/web/SEEMHN_7155_2.php Bulgarian National Bank http://www.bnb.bg/ResearchAndPublications/PubNonPeriodical/PubNPFinancialHistory/wwwPubNPSEEMHN/PubNPSEEMHN_INTRODUCTION/index.htm?toLang=_EN National Bank of Romania http://www.bnr.ro/apage.aspx?pid=11792 National Bank of Serbia http://www.nbs.rs/internet/english/90/seemhn/seemhn_dctf/index.html Oesterreichische Nationalbank www.oenb.at/en/Publications/Economics/south-east-european-monetary-history-network-data-volume.html Recommended Citation South-Eastern European Monetary and Economic Statistics from the Nineteenth Century to World War II, published by: Bank of Greece, Bulgarian National Bank, National Bank of Romania, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, 2014, Athens, Sofia, Bucharest, Vienna.