A silver transformation: Chinese monetary integration in times of political disintegration, 1898–1933

Debin Ma and Liuyan Zhao

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article provides the first systematic econometric study on the evolution of Chinese silver exchange and monetary regimes during the period 1898–1933. Using high-quality datasets of monthly and daily prices of silver dollars, we apply the threshold autoregressive models to estimate the silver points between Shanghai and 18 other cities in northern and central China. We find a noticeable improvement in monetary integration between Shanghai and Tianjin from the 1910s, which then spread to other cities in our sample throughout the 1920s and 1930s. We supplement our analysis with new datasets on volumes and costs of silver flows and with an in-depth historical narrative. This article re-evaluates the efficiency of the silver regime and China's economic performance in the Republican era.

JEL-codes: N15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2020-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-fdg, nep-his and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Economic History Review, 1, May, 2020, 73(2), pp. 513 - 539. ISSN: 0013-0117

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/104056/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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:ehl:lserod:104056

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().