Introduction: new research in monetary history - A map

This handbook aims to provide a comprehensive (though obviously not exhaustive) picture of state-of-the-art international scholarship on the history of money and currency. The chapters of this handbook cover a wide selection of research topics. They span chronologically from antiquity to nowadays and are geographically stretched from Latin America to Asia, although most of them focus on Western Europe and the USA, as a large part of the existing research does. The authors of these chapters constitute, we hope, a balanced sample of various generations of scholars who contributed to what Barry Eichengreen defined as "the new monetary and financial history" – an approach that combines the analysis of monetary aggregates and policies with the structure and dynamics of the banking sector and financial markets. We have structured this handbook in ten broad thematic parts: the historical origins of money; money, coinage, and the state; trade, money markets, and international currencies; money and metals; monetary experiments; Asian monetary systems; exchange rate regimes; monetary integration; central banking and monetary policy; and aggregate price shocks. In this introduction, we offer for each part some historical context, a few key insights from the literature, and a brief analytical summary of each chapter. Our aim is to draw a map that hopefully will help readers to organize their journey through this very wide and diverse research area

Swiss Monetary Policy: Central Bank Independence and Stabilization Goals

Swiss Monetary Policy: Central Bank Independence and Stabilization Goals The Swiss National Bank (SNB) enjoys perhaps the greatest level of autonomy featured by any of the world’s central banks. For the 1960 – 1983 period, Switzerland also comes second only to West Germany in a ranking of the inflation records of OECD countries. The present paper seeks to provide an objective analysis of Swiss monetary policy that may complement the existing studies of the autonomous central banks in the United States and West Germany. The particular importance of the price-stability goal is assessed in relation to other economic stabilization objectives by means of a reaction function approach that has the rate of growth of the Swiss monetary base as the dependent variable. Econometric results over quarterly data from 1966: 2 – 1983: 4 indicate the state of the federal budget, government purchases, the inflation rate and the exchange rate between the Swiss franc and the Deutsche Mark to be significant explanatory variables. Quantification of a countercyclical response to inflation by the SNB is a most evident feature of the results. The results further suggest that SNB policy tends to offset movements in the federal budget. Like the importance of the price-stability objective, the apparent response to fiscal policy represents a pattern of behavior that supports the formal independence of the SNB

Relative Stock Market Performance during the Coronavirus Pandemic: Virus vs. Policy Effects in 80 Countries

This paper examines relative stock market performance following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic for a sample of 80 stock markets. Weekly data on coronavirus cases and deaths are employed alongside Oxford indices on each nation’s stringency and government support intensity. The results are broken down both by month and by geographical region. The full sample results show that increased coronavirus cases exert the expected overall effect of worsening relative stock market performance, but with little consistent impact of rising deaths. There is some evidence of significantly negative stock market effects arising from lockdowns as reflected in the Oxford stringency index. There are also positive reactions to government support in March and December in the overall sample—combined with some additional pervasive effects seen in mid-2020 in Latin America

The interaction of central bank behavior with fiscal policymaking and the political business cycle : a multi-country study

The dissertation examines the relationship between monetary and fiscal authorities in national policymaking. The primary hypothesis is that, while the institution of central banking internalizes longer-term incentives than those faced by the government, the perceived threat to central bank autonomy provides an indirect role for government pressure in affecting the trade-off weights applied in monetary policy. With the deficit proxying for this pressure, the response to the deficit then interacts with the policy response that would follow from the bank's unconstrained loss function — and in this way imputes the more expansionary stance that may be preferred by government. Strong empirical support for the hypothesized role of the deficit follows for the U.S. Results for Canada and France provide somewhat weaker support, but results for the U.K. and West Germany are inconsistent with the theory. The model therefore appears most fitted to the institutional setting of the U.S.Economics, Department o

Bank Lending, Inflation, and China's Stock Market (2004–2010)

The 2009 surge in bank lending in China was accompanied by allegations of substantial funds being funneled into the nation's stock and property markets. This paper uses 2004–2010 People's Bank survey data to examine the possible linkages between banking activity and the stock market as well as the associated inflation risks. In general, stock market strength in China seems to be accompanied by rising inflationary concerns, increased bank lending activity, and reduced banker confidence that stable conditions will be maintained. This suggests that the Shanghai market could serve as a useful indicator variable for Chinese monetary policy