IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3124.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

International Monetary Instability Between the Wars: Structural Flaws or Misguided Policies?

Author

Listed:
  • Barry Eichengreen

Abstract

This paper reassesses the history of the international monetary system between the wars. It confirms the generality of several widely held interpretations of recent experience with floating exchange rates. There is a positive association between nominal exchange rate variability and real exchange rate variability. But policies of intervention which reduce nominal exchange rate variability do not guarantee a proportionate reduction in nominal exchange rate risk or in real exchange rate variability and unpredictability. A credible commitment to a stable intervention rule is needed to deliver these benefits. The paper then goes on to consider four potential explanations for the collapse of the fixed rate regime that prevailed from 1926 through 1931: (1) failure to play by the "rules of the game", (2) inadequate international economic leadership by the United States, (3) inadequate cooperation among the leading gold standard countries, and (4) structural features of a system in which reserves were comprised of both gold and foreign exchange. It concludes by assessing the role of the international monetary system in the Great Depression.

Suggested Citation

  • Barry Eichengreen, 1989. "International Monetary Instability Between the Wars: Structural Flaws or Misguided Policies?," NBER Working Papers 3124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3124
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3124.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marianne Baxter & Alan C. Stockman, 1988. "Business Cycles and the Exchange Rate System: Some International Evidence," NBER Working Papers 2689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Nouriel Roubini, 1988. "Offset and Sterilization Under Fixed Exchange Rates With An Optimizing Central Bank," NBER Working Papers 2777, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Eichengreen, Barry, 1988. "Real exchange rate behavior under alternative international monetary regimes : Interwar evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 363-371, March.
    4. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1985. "Can exchange rate predictability be achieved without monetary convergence? : Evidence from the EMS," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 93-115.
    5. Barry Eichengreen, 1988. "Did International Economic Forces Cause The Great Depression?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 6(2), pages 90-114, April.
    6. Artis, M. J., 1987. "The European monetary system: An evaluation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 175-198.
    7. Jeffrey Sachs & Charles Wyplosz, 1984. "Real Exchange Rate Effects of Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 1255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eichengreen, Barry, 1989. "The Comparative Performance of Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes: Interwar Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 349, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eichengreen, Barry, 1989. "The Comparative Performance of Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes: Interwar Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 349, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. I Paya & D Peel, 2005. "A new analysis of the determinants of the real dollar-sterling exchange rate: 1871-1994," Working Papers 565953, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    3. Alexakis, Panayotis & Apergis, Nicholas & Xanthakis, Emmanuel, 1997. "Integration of international capital markets: further evidence from EMS and non-EMS membership," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 277-287, October.
    4. Barry Eichengreen, 1987. "Trade deficits in the long run," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, pages 239-285.
    5. Weber, A.A., 1988. "The credibility of monetary policies, policymakers' reputation and the EMS-hypothesis : Empirical evidence from 13 countries," Discussion Paper 1988-3, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    6. JamesR. Lothian & MarkP. Taylor, 2008. "Real Exchange Rates Over the Past Two Centuries: How Important is the Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson Effect?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1742-1763, October.
    7. Weber, A.A., 1988. "The credibility of monetary policies, policymakers' reputation and the EMS-hypothesis : Empirical evidence from 13 countries," Other publications TiSEM 7d95e7bb-efff-41a6-8ea2-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Soubarna Pal, 2011. "Productivity Differential and Bilateral Real Exchange Rate between India and US," Journal of Quantitative Economics, The Indian Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), pages 146-155.
    9. Kenneth A. Froot & Kenneth Rogoff, 1991. "The EMS, the EMU, and the Transition to a Common Currency," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 269-328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Kalyvitis, Sarantis & Pittis, Nikitas, 1996. "Interest rate convergence, capital controls, risk premia and foreign exchange market efficiency in the EMS," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 693-714.
    11. Rudiger Dornbusch, 1988. "Real Exchange Rates and Macroeconomics: A Selective Survey," NBER Working Papers 2775, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jorge Carrera & Guillermo Vuletin, 2003. "The Effects of Exchange Rate Regimes on Real Exchange Rate Volatility. A Dynamic Panel Data Approach," Anais do XXXI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 31st Brazilian Economics Meeting] c67, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    13. Andrew H. Chen & Sumon C. Mazumdar, 1995. "Interest rate linkages within the EMS and bank credit supply," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 1(1), pages 37-48, March.
    14. M. Buch, Claudia & Hanschel, Elke, 2000. "The Effectiveness of Capital Controls: The Case of Slovenia," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 15, pages 602-628.
    15. Jong-Wha Lee & Kwanho Shin, 2010. "Exchange Rate Regimes and Economic Linkages," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 1-23.
    16. Phillips, Shauna & Bewley, Ronald A., 1990. "The Effects of Flexible Exchange Rates on Australian Wool Prices," 1990 Conference (34th), February 13-15, 1990, Brisbane, Australia 145352, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Luca Dedola & Sylvain Leduc, 2002. "Why are business cycles alike across exchange-rate regimes?," Working Papers 02-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    18. Fatma Erdem & Erdal Özmen, 2015. "Exchange Rate Regimes and Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1041-1058, November.
    19. John H. Rogers, 1995. "Real shocks and real exchange rates in really long-term data," International Finance Discussion Papers 493, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Moritz Cruz & Armando Sánchez‐Vargas, 2022. "Government spending and the exchange rate: Exploring this relationship in Mexico using a cointegrated system of equations," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 587-605, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.