War, Risk, and Gold: The Turkish War of Independence and Ottoman Empire

Hanedar Avni Önder ()
Additional contact information
Hanedar Avni Önder: Sakarya University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Esentepe Kampüsü Sakarya, Sakarya 54187 Turkey

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, 2023, vol. 64, issue 2, 619-649

Abstract: After the end of the First World War in November 1918, the Allies were involved in a military campaign in the Ottoman lands, leading to a national resistance by Turks that would end in 1923. It is relevant to provide actual information on the outcomes of the Turkish War of Independence, since it was a longlived event that paved the way for further problems on the belligerents’ economies. Using unique data for the value of the gold from 1919 to 1925 at the İstanbul bourse, our analysis complements the historical arguments as historians may find political risks difficult to quantify. We observe that in 1921 the Turkish victories created expectations on the part of traders that the war could end soon, as is manifested in exchange rate fluctuations. The Turkish economy would have experienced higher financial instability with the Allies’ occupation and resistance in 1920, creating a lower chance to return the pre-war gold content of the belligerents’ currencies.

Keywords: The First World War; the Turkish War of Independence; the occupation; the İstanbul bourse; foreign exchange trading; structural breaks; Erster Weltkrieg; Türkischer Unabhängigkeitskrieg; Istanbuler Börse; Devisenhandel; Strukturbrüche (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G N (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2023-0022 (text/html)

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jbwige:v:64:y:2023:i:2:p:619-649:n:6

DOI: 10.1515/jbwg-2023-0022

Access Statistics for this article

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook is currently edited by Dieter Ziegler

More articles in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().