IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/jhisae/0086.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

British Imperialism and Portfolio Choice in the Currency Boards of Palestine, East Africa, and West Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Boger, Tal

    (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise)

Abstract

Did British colonial policy primarily benefit Britain, or its colonies? Wadan Narsey, in British Imperialism and the Makings of Colonial Currency Systems (2016), claims that Britain established currency boards to help itself at the expense of the colonies. Examining the history of several currency boards and their assets for select years, Narsey finds that under British influence, they held lower-yielding, shorter-maturity British assets than they need have done, costing colonial governments revenue. We explore this idea by analyzing full annual data on the securities and assets of the currency boards of Palestine, East Africa, and West Africa. An accompanying spreadsheet workbook shows the details of the analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Boger, Tal, 2017. "British Imperialism and Portfolio Choice in the Currency Boards of Palestine, East Africa, and West Africa," Studies in Applied Economics 86, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:jhisae:0086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2020/01/Tal_Boger_British_Imperialism-1.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. P. J. Cain, 1996. "Gentlemanly imperialism at work: the Bank of England, Canada, and the sterling area, 1932-1936," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 49(2), pages 336-357, May.
    2. Holger C. Wolf & Atish R. Ghosh & Helge Berger & Anne-Marie Gulde, 2008. "Currency Boards in Retrospect and Prospect," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262232650, December.
    3. Ofonagoro, Walter I., 1979. "From Traditional to British Currency in Southern Nigeria: Analysis of a Currency Revolution, 1880–1948," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 623-654, September.
    4. D. C. Rowan, 1954. "The Origins Of The West African Currency Board," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 22(4), pages 421-438, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tammaro, David, 2018. "Evaluating the Fijian Board of Commissioners of Currency," Studies in Applied Economics 116, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Singleton,John, 2010. "Central Banking in the Twentieth Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521899093.
    2. Josh Ryan-Collins, 2015. "Is Monetary Financing Inflationary? A Case Study of the Canadian Economy, 1935-75," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_848, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Cobham, David, 2022. "Monetary policy frameworks since Bretton Woods, across the world and its regions," MPRA Paper 114466, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Dorota Zuchowska, 2015. "Accession To The Eurozone As Lithuania’S Exit Strategy From The Currency Board System," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 10(3), pages 27-43, September.
    5. Emil Kalchev, 2015. "The Currency Board In Bulgaria – Staus Quo And Perspectives," Economy & Business Journal, International Scientific Publications, Bulgaria, vol. 9(1), pages 554-562.
    6. Dumitriu, Ramona & Stefanescu, Razvan, 2013. "Utilizarea cursurilor valutare drept ancore nominale antiinflaţioniste [The use of exchange rates as nominal anchors]," MPRA Paper 52415, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Naness, Rachmiel Joseph, 2017. "An Analysis of the Performance of Currency Boards," Studies in Applied Economics 70, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    8. Gardner, Leigh, 2022. "The collapse of the gold standard in Africa: money and colonialism in the interwar period," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116665, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Mr. Helge Berger & Volker Nitsch, 2010. "The Euro’s Effecton Trade Imbalances," IMF Working Papers 2010/226, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Berger, Helge & Nitsch, Volker, 2014. "Wearing corset, losing shape: The euro's effect on trade imbalances," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 136-155.
    11. Asa Malmstrom Rognes & Catherine R. Schenk, 2023. "One country, two currencies: The adoption of the Hong Kong currency board, 1983," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 477-497, May.
    12. Ellen Feingold & Johan Fourie & Leigh Gardner, 2021. "A tale of paper and gold: The material history of money in South Africa," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 264-281, May.
    13. Feng, Shu & Fu, Liang & Ho, Chun-Yu & Alex Ho, Wai-Yip, 2023. "Political stability and credibility of currency board," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Calomiris, Charles W. & Flandreau, Marc & Laeven, Luc, 2016. "Political foundations of the lender of last resort: A global historical narrative," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    15. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2013. "Does the currency board matter? US news and Argentine financial market reaction," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(28), pages 4034-4040, October.
    16. Schrader, Klaus & Laaser, Claus-Friedrich & Reiljan, Janno, 2014. "Deficiencies in the development of an Estonian welfare state," Kiel Working Papers 1944, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    17. repec:cbk:journl:v:2:y:2013:i:2:p:5-27 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Ismeal Mahamoud & Houmed Mohamed & Jean-François Ponsot, 2014. "Gouvernance, éthique du policy maker et dynamiques macroéconomiques en régime de Currency Board : le cas de Djibouti," Post-Print halshs-01284797, HAL.
    19. Krus, Nicholas, 2012. "The Money Supply in Currency Boards," Studies in Applied Economics 3, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    20. Holger Wolf, 2016. "Currency boards as a path towards the Eurozone: lessons from the Baltics," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 45-57, January.
    21. Ellen Feingold & Johan Fourie & Leigh Gardner, 2021. "A tale of paper and gold: The material history of money in South Africa," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 264-281, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    British colonialism; British imperialism; Palestine Currency Board; East African Currency Board; West African Currency Board;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N15 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Asia including Middle East
    • N17 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Africa; Oceania

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:jhisae:0086. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Steve H. Hanke (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaejhus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.