International Gold Standard In The Interwar Period

The “international gold standard,” defined as the period of time during which countries were on the gold standard, existed from 1879 to 1914 (36 years) in the classical period and from 1926 or 1928 to 1931 (four or six years) in the interwar period. The interwar gold standard was a dismal failure in longevity, as well as in its association with the greatest depression the world has known.

Exchange rate speculation tended to be stabilizing in the years of GS which was much less the case during the interwar GS just because markets were deeply convinced that gold parities between currencies would never change, as the content of gold of each currency was a non-modifiable characteristic crucial for guaranteeing its acceptability as a medium of exchange.

Fourth, the contingency aspect of convertibility conversion, that required restoration of convertibility at the mint price that existed prior to the emergency (World War I), was broken by various countries — even core countries. Some countries (including the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan, Argentina) stabilized their currencies at the prewar mint price. However, other countries (France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Chile) established a gold content of their currency that was a fraction of the prewar level: the currency was devalued in terms of gold, the mint price was higher than prewar. A third group of countries (Germany, Austria, Hungary) stabilized new currencies adopted after hyperinflation. A fourth group (Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) consisted of countries that became independent or were created following the war and that joined the interwar gold standard. A fifth group (some Latin American countries) had been on silver or paper standards during the classical period but went on the interwar gold standard. A sixth country group (Russia) had been on the classical gold standard, but did not join the interwar gold standard. A seventh group (Spain, China, Iran) joined neither gold

The fifth way in which the interwar gold standard diverged from the classical experience was the mix of gold-standard types. The gold coin standard, dominant in the classical period, was far less prevalent in the interwar period. In particular, all four core countries had been on coin in the classical gold standard; but, of them, only the United States was on coin interwar. The gold-bullion standard, nonexistent prewar, was adopted by two core countries (United Kingdom and France) as well as by two Scandinavian countries (Denmark and Norway). Most countries were on a gold-exchange standard. The central banks of countries on the gold-exchange standard would convert their currencies not into gold but rather into “gold-exchange” currencies (currencies themselves convertible into gold), in practice often sterling, sometimes the dollar (the reserve