The late nineteenth century saw a movement among nation states which led to the widespread adoption of an international gold standard. So far, research has failed to demonstrate any specific qualities of gold that would explain its selection in preference to systems based upon silver or bimetallism. Neither has it proved possible to account for this choice in terms of any specific events in the historical record. The movement appears to have occurred almost without volition. In this paper it is suggested that the adoption of a 'socio-economic regime' such as the gold standard might be explainable by an approach similar to that put forward to explain 'technological' lock-in, where dominance can arise as a result of the culmination of a series of individual, small and perhaps unidentifiable accidents of history.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 11 (1999) Issue (Month): 2 (April) Pages: 125-149 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: