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The Stability of the Interwar Gold Exchange Standard: Did Politics Matter?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

KIRSTEN WANDSCHNEIDER
KIRSTEN WANDSCHNEIDER*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 05753. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

Economic historians have devoted enormous attention to the collapse of the interwar gold standard. This article proposes a discrete time duration model (using a panel data set of 24 countries for 1928–1936) to analyze how economic and political indicators affected a country's term on the gold standard. High per capita income, international creditor status, and prior hyperinflation increased the probability of continuation. In contrast, democratic regimes left early. Unemployment, sterling group membership, higher inflation, and the experience of banking crises reduced the time a country remained on the gold standard. This study also predicts sample countries' survival probabilities.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 151 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2008

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