Floating against the tide: Spanish monetary policy, 1870-1931

Pablo Martin-Acena and Elena Martínez Ruiz
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Pilar Nogues-Marco

IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola

Abstract: The gold standard began to emerge as a universal monetary system in the late 1870s, and it had spread throughout the world economy by 1900. It was unusual for nations to be off the gold standard, and it meant that they were detached from the international financial community. Spain never joined the gold standard club in any of its varieties, either before or after 1914. Unlike the vast majority of the European currencies, the peseta’s exchange rate fluctuated, sometimes widely, against gold and gold currencies. Gold convertibility was suspended in 1883 and never resumed. Nevertheless, the monetary authorities were aware that the Spanish economy, off the gold standard, was an outlier in the international economy and made plans to put the peseta on gold both before and after 1914.Why Spain never adopted the gold standard is a complex issue, and our paper offers a possible answer by examining the behaviour of an issuing bank that refused to accept, or resisted, its role as a central bank. Our study also provides a basis for a comparison between the Bank of Spain, some of its features and policies, with other peripheral issuing institutions. Moreover, our paper encompasses both the pre-war and the post-war periods, which allows us to present both the similarities and the differences in the exchange and monetary policies of the Spanish authorities during the era of the classical gold standard and the years of the gold exchange standard

Keywords: Gold; standard; Monetary; policy; Bank; of; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E42 E58 N10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-his, nep-hpe, nep-mac and nep-mon
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Chapter: Floating against the Tide: Spanish Monetary Policy 1870–1931 (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp11-10

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