Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939This book offers a reassessment of the international monetary problems that led to the global economic crisis of the 1930s. It explores the connections between the gold standard--the framework regulating international monetary affairs until 1931--and the Great Depression that broke out in 1929. Eichengreen shows how economic policies, in conjunction with the imbalances created by World War I, gave rise to the global crisis of the 1930s. He demonstrates that the gold standard fundamentally constrained the economic policies that were pursued and that it was largely responsible for creating the unstable economic environment on which those policies acted. The book also provides a valuable perspective on the economic policies of the post-World War II period and their consequences. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
The Classical Gold Standard in Interwar Perspective | 29 |
The Wartime Transition | 67 |
Postwar Instability | 100 |
The Legacy of Hyperinflation | 125 |
Reconstructing the Facade | 153 |
The Interwar Gold Standard in Operation | 187 |
Cracks in the Facade | 222 |
Tentative Adjustments | 287 |
The Dollar and the World Economic Conference | 317 |
Toward the Tripartite Agreement | 348 |
Conclusion | 390 |
401 | |
CARTOON SOURCES | 427 |
429 | |
Crisis and Opportunity | 258 |
Other editions - View all
Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 Barry Eichengreen Limited preview - 1992 |
Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 Barry Eichengreen No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
abroad additional adjustment American assets balance of payments balance-of-payments Bank of England Bank of France Bank rate banking system Belgium borrowing Britain British budget deficit capital central banks commodity credibility crisis debt decline deflation demand depreciated currencies Depression devaluation discount rate dollar domestic credit economic effects Europe European exchange control exchange rate expansionary exports Federal Reserve System fell fiscal French Germany gold bloc gold convertibility gold reserves gold standard gold standard countries hyperinflation imports income increase industrial production inflation inflationary inflows interest rates international cooperation international monetary interwar investment investors issue League of Nations levels liquidity loans London ment million monetary policy money supply officials open market open market operations operation percent policymakers political pressure prewar problem purchases raised recovery reduced Reichsbank reparations reserve banks response restore revenues rise Roosevelt rose short-term stability sterling tion trade treasury bills U.S. dollar United wages World York