IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecaffa/v45y2025i3p479-496.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

One money – two values: Sweden's experience of parallel banknotes 1789–1803, and its relevance for today's CBDC debate

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriel Stein

Abstract

From 1789 to 1803, Sweden experienced a unique monetary situation. The government issued banknotes through two institutions, Riksens Ständers Bank (the Bank of the Estates of the Realm, later the Riksbank) and Riksgäldskontoret (the National Debt Office); the notes were in the same currency (riksdaler); they were occasionally in the same denominations; and they were both legal tender. Yet their values diverged, eventually by as much as 50 per cent. Both contemporary and subsequent writers have generally argued that this divergence occurred and was later driven by mass issuance of the Debt Office notes, and/or by the fact that these notes, in contrast to notes issued by the Bank, were not convertible into specie. These explanations are not borne out by the data. Instead, the best fit for the changes in the exchange rate between the two banknote types seems to be changes in the size of the outstanding government debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel Stein, 2025. "One money – two values: Sweden's experience of parallel banknotes 1789–1803, and its relevance for today's CBDC debate," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 479-496, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecaffa:v:45:y:2025:i:3:p:479-496
    DOI: 10.1111/ecaf.70004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecaf.70004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecaf.70004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:bla:ecaffa:v:45:y:2025:i:3:p:479-496. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0265-0665 .

    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.