Gold, Money and Trade

Leonard Gomes
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Leonard Gomes: Middlesex Polytechnic

Chapter 6 in Foreign Trade and the National Economy, 1987, pp 220-253 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Free trade and the gold standard are inseparably associated with the nineteenth-century and its classical economists. However, except for Great Britain (from 1816) and Portugal (from 1854) the gold standard was not generally adopted until 1879; hence adherence to the international gold standard lasted only thirty-five years, i.e. until 1914. To later generations it epitomised all that was good and bad in classical laissez-faire and its regime of free trade. To those who see the good in it, it stands for monetary order, low interest rates, price stability and high rates of economic growth. To those who see it ‘warts and all’ the gold standard was a ‘fair-weather’ system that worked well only so long as the world economy was booming. Memories of the inter-war years are still vivid and for those deeply scarred by the depression it stands for deflation, unemployment and hardship.

Keywords: Exchange Rate; Central Bank; Foreign Trade; Money Supply; Money Stock (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-08992-5_6

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-08992-5_6

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