International Economics and Domestic Politics: Notes on the 1920s
There were radical differences in post‐war exchange‐rate regimes, and associated monetary and fiscal policies. Some countries accommodated moderate inflation by abandoning their pre‐war gold parities; others subjected themselves to painful deflation in order to restore gold convertibility at the pre‐war rates. Major policy differences were again evident in response to the Great Depression, with some eagerly abandoning the gold standard, others seeking at all costs to preserve it. To explain these differences, Eichengreen and Simmons investigate the relationship between economic policy and domestic political systems. They find that countries with independent central banks, more stable governments, larger governing majorities, and, more surprisingly, left‐wing parliamentary majorities were better able to resist currency depreciation in the 1920s.
Keywords: central banks, currency depreciation, deflation, exchange rates, fiscal policy, gold standard, Great Depression, inflation, monetary policy, political systems
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .