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Currency Crisis and Unemployment: Sterling in 1931

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Author Info
Eichengreen, Barry
Jeanne, Olivier

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Abstract

This paper studies the role of unemployment in sterling’s inter-war experience. According to most narrative accounts, the proximate cause of the 1931 sterling crisis was a high and rising unemployment rate that placed pressure on British governments to pursue reflationary policies. We present a model which, in the spirit of the ‘second generation’ approach to currency crises, highlights the conflict between the objective of low unemployment and defence of the currency and show that it can reproduce the main features of sterling’s inter-war experience. Econometric evidence lends further support to the view that the proximate cause of the sterling crisis was the dramatic rise in unemployment caused by external deflationary forces.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 1898.

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Date of creation: Jun 1998
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1898

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Related research
Keywords: Currency Crisis; Gold Standard; Great Depression; Sterling; Unemployment;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations

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  1. Flood, Robert P & Garber, Peter M, 1984. "Gold Monetization and Gold Discipline," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 90-107, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Ben S. Bernanke & Kevin Carey, 1996. "Nominal Wage Stickiness and Aggregate Supply in the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 5439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Dimsdale, Nicholas H & Horsewood, Nicholas, 1995. "Fiscal Policy and Employment in Interwar Britain: Some Evidence from a New Model," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(3), pages 369-96, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Alogoskoufis, George S & Smith, Ron, 1991. "The Phillips Curve, the Persistence of Inflation, and the Lucas Critique: Evidence from Exchange-Rate Regimes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1254-75, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Bean, Charles R, 1994. "European Unemployment: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 573-619, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Miller, Marcus & Sutherland, Alan, 1994. "Speculative Anticipations of Sterling's Return to Gold: Was Keynes Wrong?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(425), pages 804-12, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Maurice Obstfeld, 1986. "Rational and Self-Fulfilling Balance-of-Payments Crises," NBER Working Papers 1486, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Olivier Jeanne and Paul Masson., 1997. "Was the French Franc Crisis a Sunspot Equilibrium?," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C97-095, University of California at Berkeley.
  9. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Working Papers 95-15, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Krugman, Paul, 1979. "A Model of Balance-of-Payments Crises," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 11(3), pages 311-25, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Hatton, T J, 1988. "A Quarterly Model of the Labour Market in Interwar Britain," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 50(1), pages 1-25, February.
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  12. Olivier Jeanne., 1997. "The Persistence of Unemployment Under a Fixed Exchange Rate Peg," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C97-093, University of California at Berkeley.
  13. Paul Krugman, 1996. "Are Currency Crises Self-Fulfilling?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 345-407 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  14. Robert Flood & Nancy Marion, 1998. "Perspectives on the Recent Currency Crisis Literature," NBER Working Papers 6380, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Rudger Dornbusch & Ilan Goldfajn & Rodrigo O. Valdés, 1995. "Currency Crises and Collapses," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1995-2), pages 219-294. [Downloadable!]
  16. Broadberry, S N, 1983. "Unemployment in Interwar Britain: A Disequilibrium Approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(3), pages 463-85, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Jeanne, Olivier, 1997. "Are currency crises self-fulfilling?: A test," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3-4), pages 263-286, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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