IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/pseptp/halshs-02973035.html

Do old habits die hard? Central banks and the Bretton Woods gold puzzle

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Monnet

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research)

  • Damien Puy

    (IMF - IMF - International Monetary Fund)

Abstract

We assess the importance of individual and institutional experience in shaping macroeconomic policy by studying the persistence of gold standard monetary practices in the Bretton Woods system. Using new data from the IMF archives, we show that, although they were not required to, countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold. The longer an institution spent in the gold standard (and the older the policymakers), the tighter the link between gold and currency. Such "old habits" prevented dollars and gold from working as perfect substitutes and ultimately contributed to the demise of the Bretton Woods system. Our findings highlight the persistence of past practices, even in the face of radical institutional change, and its consequences on the international monetary system.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Monnet & Damien Puy, 2020. "Do old habits die hard? Central banks and the Bretton Woods gold puzzle," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-02973035, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-02973035
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103394
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Lea Steininger & Casimir Hesse, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp357, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    2. Barkhausen, David & Teupe, Sebastian, 2023. "The German inflation trauma: Weimar's policy lessons between persistence and reconstruction," Working Papers 40, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    3. Eric Monnet & Mr. Damien Puy, 2016. "Has Globalization Really Increased Business Cycle Synchronization?," IMF Working Papers 2016/054, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Naef, Alain, 2021. "Central Bank Reserves during the Bretton Woods Period: New data from France, the UK and Switzerland," SocArXiv he7gx, Center for Open Science.
    5. Arslanalp, Serkan & Eichengreen, Barry & Simpson-Bell, Chima, 2023. "Gold as international reserves: A barbarous relic no more?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    6. Guillaume Bazot & Eric Monnet & Matthias Morys, 2024. "Central banks and the absorption of international shocks (1891-2019)," Working Papers halshs-04778323, HAL.
    7. Rathi, Sawan & Mohapatra, Sanket & Sahay, Arvind, 2021. "Central bank gold reserves and sovereign credit risk," IIMA Working Papers WP 2021-03-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    8. Omar Zulaica, 2020. "What share for gold? On the interaction of gold and foreign exchange reserve returns," BIS Working Papers 906, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. George Pantelopoulos, 2021. "Exogenous and endogenous sterilisation under managed exchange rates," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 756-779, September.
    10. Kris James Mitchener & Eric Monnet, 2023. "Connected Lending of Last Resort," NBER Working Papers 30869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Rathi, Sawan & Mohapatra, Sanket & Sahay, Arvind, 2022. "Central bank gold reserves and sovereign credit risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    12. Monnet, Eric & Puy, Damien, 2020. "Do old habits die hard? Central banks and the Bretton Woods gold puzzle," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    13. Jeanne, Olivier & Sandri, Damiano, 2020. "Optimal reserves in financially closed economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    14. Cezar, Rafael & Monnet, Eric, 2023. "Capital controls and foreign reserves against external shocks: Combined or alone?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    15. repec:osf:socarx:he7gx_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Alan de Bromhead & David Jordan & Francis Kennedy & Jack Seddon, 2023. "Sterling's farewell symphony: The end of the Sterling Area revisited," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 415-444, May.
    17. Qin, Meng & Su, Chi-Wei & Pirtea, Marilen Gabriel & Dumitrescu Peculea, Adelina, 2023. "The essential role of Russian geopolitics: A fresh perception into the gold market," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    18. Barkhausen David & Teupe Sebastian, 2025. "The German Inflation Trauma: Weimar’s Policy Lessons Between Persistence and Reconstruction," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 245(3), pages 269-332.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

    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:hal:pseptp:halshs-02973035. 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.