The utility of a common coinage: currency unions and the integration of money markets in late medieval Central Europe

Lars Boerner and Oliver Volckart

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: This paper employs a new method and dataset to estimate the effect of currency unions on the integration of financial markets in late medieval Central Europe. The analysis reveals that membership in a union was significantly correlated with well-integrated markets. We also examine whether currency unions were endogenous. Our results indicate that where unions were established, markets had been significantly better integrated already in the preceding period. In addition, we show that currency unions created by autonomous merchant towns were better integrated than unions implemented by territorial rulers. The overall implication is that monetary diversity was a corollary of weakly integrated markets in late medieval Central Europe.

JEL-codes: B11 F3 G3 N0 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2010-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29409/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The utility of a common coinage: Currency unions and the integration of money markets in late Medieval Central Europe (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:29409

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