The Bank of France and the Gold Dependency: Observations on the Bank's Weekly Balance Sheets and Reserves, 1898-1940

Robert Yee
Additional contact information
Robert Yee: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise

No 128, Studies in Applied Economics from The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise

Abstract: A central bank’s weekly balance sheets give insights into the willingness and ability of a monetary authority to act in times of economic crises. In particular, levels of gold, silver, and foreign-currency reserves, both as a nominal figure and as a percentage of global reserves, prove to be useful in examining changes to an institution’s agenda over time. Using several recently compiled datasets, this study contextualizes the Bank’s financial affairs within a historical framework and argues that the Bank’s active monetary policy of reserve accumulation stemmed from contemporary views concerning economic stability and risk mitigation. Les bilans hebdomadaires d’une banque centrale donnent des vues à la volonté et la capacité d’une autorité monétaire d’agir en crise économique. Notamment, les niveaux d’or, d’argent, et de devises, en montant nominal et pourcentage des réserves mondiales, sont utiles pour examiner des changements à l’agenda d’une institution au fil du temps. Avec plusieurs jeux de données récemment compilés, cette étude contextualise la situation financière de la Banque dans un cadre historique et conclure que le marché monétaire actif de la Banque sur l’accumulation des réserves émerge des idées contemporaines concernant la stabilité économique et l’atténuation des risques.

Keywords: balance sheets; central banks; gold standard; Great Depression; monetary policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E52 E58 N14 N24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2018-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2018/10/Bank-of-France-1-1.pdf Full text (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:ris:jhisae:0128

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Studies in Applied Economics from The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Steve H. Hanke ().