1300 Years of the Pound Sterling

Martin Weale

National Institute Economic Review, 2000, vol. 172, 78-89

Abstract: The article begins with an account of the way in which the value of the pound has changed over the last 1300 years or so. This is indicated in terms of silver and, for the last 7–800 years, also in terms of gold, wheat and Phelps-Brown's general cost of living basket. It is shown, for example, that the whole of the increase in the price of silver since 1000 has occurred in the last 60 years. These prices are used to indicate how the real wage of a building labourer has changed since the 13th century. The article then proceeds to an account of the evolution of the currency itself, from its beginning as a pound of silver cut into 240 pennies (following continential practice) to the move to a gold currency and the introduction of paper money. It concludes with a discussion of whether the whole concept of currency will eventually become obsolete.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (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:cup:nierev:v:172:y:2000:i::p:78-89_8

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in National Institute Economic Review from National Institute of Economic and Social Research Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().