Franklin D. Roosevelt, Silver, and China

Milton Friedman

Journal of Political Economy, 1992, vol. 100, issue 1, pages 62-83

Abstract: The silver purchase program, initiated by Franklin Roosevelt in late 1933 in response to the economically small but politically potent silver bloc, gave a large short-run subsidy to silver producers at the cost of destroying any long-run monetary role for silver. More important, it imposed severe deflation on China, the only major country still on a silver standard, and forced it off the silver standard and on to a fiat standard, which brought forward in time and increased in severity the subsequent wartime inflation and postwar hyperinflation. The silver purchase program thereby contributed, though perhaps only modestly, to the ultimate triumph of the Communists. Copyright 1992 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1992

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-3808%2819920 ... O%3B2-2&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:100:y:1992:i:1:p:62-83

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE/order1.html

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Political Economy is edited by Steven D. Levitt, MONIKA PIAZZESI, CANICE PRENDERGAST and ROBERT SHIMER

More articles in Journal of Political Economy from University of Chicago Press
Address: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().