IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1039.html

The Gold Standard and the Bank of England in the Crisis of 1847

Author

Listed:
  • Rudiger Dornbusch
  • Jacob A. Frenkel

Abstract

This paper examines the operation of the gold standard and the performance of the Bank of England during the crisis of 1847. The key feature of that crisis has been its origin: it originated from a massive real shock rather than from monetary disorder. A harvest failure gave rise to commercial distress and financial panic.Following a brief outline of the main events during the 1847 crisis, we present asimple model of the financial sector that captures the central characteristics of the crisis. The model, which highlights the role of confidence in both external and internal convertibility, is then used for interpreting the detailed characteristics of the financial crisis.Faced with a confidence crisis leading to international and external monetary drains,the Bank of England suspended Peel's act and thereby was allowed to issue fiat money without being constrained to have full gold backing. Our analysis shows that suspension of Peel's act was the proper policy required for the restoration of confidence. It also sheds light on the role of a lender of last resort in cases of banking panic.As for the evaluation of the gold standard, the 1847 crisis demonstrates that International capital flows have played a key role in the adjustnent mechanism. Further, it demonstrates that in contrast with the traditional representation, the gold standard has not been characterized by automatic, non-discretionary adjustment. On the contrary,banking policies and changes in the reserve-deposits and currency-deposits ratios have affected the money stock independently of gold flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Rudiger Dornbusch & Jacob A. Frenkel, 1982. "The Gold Standard and the Bank of England in the Crisis of 1847," NBER Working Papers 1039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1039
    Note: ITI EFG IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1039.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hicks, John, 1977. "Economic Perspectives: Further Essays on Money and Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198284079.
    2. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1, March.
    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. Patrick K O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2020. "Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797–1821," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 24(2), pages 390-426.
    2. Alberto Giovannini, 1992. "Bretton Woods and Its Precursors: Rules Versus Discretion in the History of International Monetary Regimes," NBER Working Papers 4001, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bindseil, Ulrich & Winkler, Adalbert, 2012. "Dual liquidity crises under alternative monetary frameworks: a financial accounts perspective," Working Paper Series 1478, European Central Bank.
    4. Patrick K. O’Brien & Nuno Palma, 2019. "Danger To The Old Lady Of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act And The Regime Shift To Paper Money, 1797-18211," Working Papers 0082, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    5. M. June Flanders, 1993. "A Model of Discretion: The Gold Standard in Fact and in Fiction," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 213-235, March.
    6. Maurice Obstfeld & Jay C. Shambaugh & Alan M. Taylor, 2010. "Financial Stability, the Trilemma, and International Reserves," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 57-94, April.
    7. Bordo, Michael D., 1986. "Explorations in monetary history: A survey of the literature," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 339-415, October.
    8. Stefano Ugolini, 2012. "The origins of foreign exchange policy: the National Bank of Belgium and the quest for monetary independence in the 1850s," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 16(1), pages 51-73, February.
    9. Jérôme Sgard, 1998. "Inflation, stabilisation et prix relatifs en Argentine et au Brésil," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03585833, HAL.
    10. Michael D. Bordo, 1998. "The financial crisis of 1825 and the restructuring of the British financial system - commentary," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 77-82.
    11. Alberto Giovannini, 1993. "Bretton Woods and Its Precursors: Rules versus Discretion in the History of International Monetary Regimes," NBER Chapters, in: A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for International Monetary Reform, pages 109-154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jérôme Sgard, 1998. "Inflation, stabilisation et prix relatifs en Argentine et au Brésil," Post-Print hal-03585833, HAL.
    13. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Isabel Schnabel, 2014. "Bubbles and Central Banks: Historical Perspectives," Working Papers 1411, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, revised 31 Oct 2014.
    14. Kilian Rieder & Michael Anson & David Bholat & Miao Kang & Ryland Thomas, 2018. "Frosted glass or raised eyebrow? Testing the Bank of England’s discount window policies during the crisis of 1847," Working Papers 18020, Economic History Society.
    15. Miller, Victoria, 1996. "Speculative currency attacks with endogenously induced commercial bank crises," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 383-403, June.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6982 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Willem H. Buiter & Jonathan Eaton, 1982. "On the Adequacy or Inadequacy of Keynesian Balance-of-Payments Theory: A Rejoinder," NBER Working Papers 1032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Harold James, 2023. "Inflation and globalisation: The Tawney Lecture 2022," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 391-412, May.
    19. Mike Anson & David Bholat & Miao Kang & Kilian Rieder & Ryland Thomas, 2019. "The Bank of England and central bank credit rationing during the crisis of 1847: frosted glass or raised eyebrows?," Bank of England working papers 794, Bank of England.
    20. M. Berlemann & Nikolay Nenovsky, 2003. "Lending of First Versus Lending of Last Resort: The Bulgarian Financial Crisis of 1996/1997," Post-Print halshs-00260241, HAL.
    21. Jérôme Sgard, 1998. "Inflation, stabilisation et prix relatifs en Argentine et au Brésil : l'expérience des années quatre-vingt-dix," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 49(1), pages 239-256.
    22. della Paolera, Gerardo & Taylor, Alan M., 2002. "Internal versus external convertibility and emerging-market crises: lessons from Argentine history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 357-389, October.
    23. Michael Perelman, 1990. "The Phenomenology of Constant Capital and Fictitious Capital," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 22(2-3), pages 66-91, June.
    24. Cormac Ó Gráda & Eric Vanhaute & Richard Paping, 2006. "The European subsistence crisis of 1845-1850 : a comparative perspective," Working Papers 200609, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    25. Nuno Palma, 2016. "Reconstruction of annual money supply over the long run: The case of England, 1279-1870," Working Papers 0094, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).

    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. KAMKOUM, Arnaud Cedric, 2023. "The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and its Effects: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of the Impact of its Quantitative Easing Programs," Thesis Commons d7pvg, Center for Open Science.
    2. P. D. Jonson, 1979. "The State of Australian Economics: Stabilization and Industry Policies: A review article stimulated by F. H. Gruen (ed.), Surveys of Australian Economics, Volume 1," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 55(4), pages 297-305, December.
    3. Sriya Anbil & Mark A. Carlson & Christopher Hanes & David C. Wheelock, 2020. "A New Daily Federal Funds Rate Series and History of the Federal Funds Market, 1928-1954," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-059, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Metiu, Norbert, 2021. "Anticipation effects of protectionist U.S. trade policies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. George S. Tavlas, 2015. "In Old Chicago: Simons, Friedman, and the Development of Monetary‐Policy Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(1), pages 99-121, February.
    6. Angeloni, Ignazio, 1999. "The role of a regional bank in a system of central banks : A comment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 73-77, December.
    7. Angelo Federico Arcelli & Reiner Stefano Masera & Giovanni Tria, 2021. "Da Versailles a Bretton Woods e ai giorni nostri: errori storici e modelli ancora attuali per un sistema monetario internazionale sostenibile (From Bretton Woods to our days: Historic mistakes and mod," Moneta e Credito, Economia civile, vol. 74(296), pages 249-273.
    8. Edwards, Sebastian, 2020. "Change of monetary regime, contracts, and prices: Lessons from the great depression, 1932–1935," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. Hejie Zhang & Huiming Lv & Shenghau Lin, 2021. "Financial Development, Saving Rates, and International Economic Volatility: A Simple Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(16), pages 1-20, August.
    10. ASIANI, Freddy, 2020. "La sensibilité de l'économie congolaise face aux chocs monétaire et budgétaire : une approche en modèle var standard [The sensitivity of the congolese economy to monetary and budgetary shocks: a st," MPRA Paper 101255, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Altermatt, Lukas & van Buggenum, Hugo & Voellmy, Lukas, 2024. "Systemic bank runs without aggregate risk: How a misallocation of liquidity may trigger a solvency crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    12. Bonga-Bonga, Lumengo & Kabundi, Alain, 2015. "Monetary Policy Instrument and Inflation in South Africa: Structural Vector Error Correction Model Approach," MPRA Paper 63731, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2013. "Price Rigidity: Microeconomic Evidence and Macroeconomic Implications," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 133-163, May.
    14. Peter J. Boettke & Alexander W. Salter & Daniel J. Smith, 2018. "Money as meta-rule: Buchanan’s constitutional economics as a foundation for monetary stability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 529-555, September.
    15. International Association for Islamic Economics, 2009. "Economic Solutions From Islamic Finance: Position Statement of the International Association for Islamic Economics الحلول الاقتصادية من التمويل الإسلامي: بيان موقف الجمعية الدولية للاقتصاد الإسلامي," Chapters of books published by the Islamic Economics Institute, KAAU or its faculty members., in: Islamic Economics Institute (ed.),Issues in the International Financial Crisis from an Islamic Perspective-05 قضايا في الأزمة المالية الدولية من منظور إسلامي, edition 1, chapter 16, pages 265-269, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute..
    16. Alfred Duncan & Charles Nolan, 2020. "Reform of the UK Financial Policy Committee," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(1), pages 1-30, February.
    17. Goodhart, Charles, 1989. "The Conduct of Monetary Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(396), pages 293-346, June.
    18. Livio Di Matteo & Angela Redish, 2015. "The evolution of financial intermediation: Evidence from 19th-century Ontario microdata," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(3), pages 963-987, August.
    19. Pablo Paniagua, 2023. "Money and the rule of Law," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 260-266, June.
    20. Edwards, Chase J. & Bendickson, Joshua S. & Baker, Brent L. & Solomon, Shelby J., 2020. "Entrepreneurship within the history of marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 259-267.

    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:nbr:nberwo:1039. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.