IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/eabhps/279905.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The efficiency of the London Gold Fixing: From Gold Standard to hoarded commodity (1919-68)

Author

Listed:
  • O'Connor, Fergal A.
  • Lucey, Brian M.

Abstract

This paper presents and explains the newly rediscovered and transcribed daily market gold price from 1919-1968 for the world's main gold market during the period, the London Gold Fixing Auction. The paper highlights several novel features previously not discussed in the literature, such as gold prices fluctuating at the daily Gold Fixing even during the two Gold Standard periods when gold prices are often thought of as 'fixed'. It also describes key turning points during the evolution of the Gold Fixing such as its formation and the daily price reactions when Britain went on or came off the Gold Standard. This paper offers the first long-run examination of the weak form efficiency of the Gold Fixing from its inception, at a time when gold was the centre of the world's monetary system. We find that the Gold Fixing price was informationally efficient at its inception in 1919 but by the 1930s, when there was increased buying for speculation and investment (referred to as hoarding) the market became more predictable and inefficient. We also find that the market was inefficient during gold standard periods when central banks were limiting gold's ability to react to new information.

Suggested Citation

  • O'Connor, Fergal A. & Lucey, Brian M., 2023. "The efficiency of the London Gold Fixing: From Gold Standard to hoarded commodity (1919-68)," eabh Papers 23-01, The European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:eabhps:279905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/279905/1/1870983491.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bordo, Michael & Monnet, Eric & Naef, Alain, 2019. "The Gold Pool (1961–1968) and the Fall of the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for Central Bank Cooperation," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1027-1059, December.
    2. Anthony John Arnold, 2016. "Business returns from gold price fixing and bullion trading on the interwar London market," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(2), pages 283-308, March.
    3. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    4. Andrew W. Lo, A. Craig MacKinlay, 1988. "Stock Market Prices do not Follow Random Walks: Evidence from a Simple Specification Test," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 41-66.
    5. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S, 1993. "Do Gold Market Returns Have Long Memory?," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 28(2), pages 181-202, May.
    6. Wright, Jonathan H, 2000. "Alternative Variance-Ratio Tests Using Ranks and Signs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(1), pages 1-9, January.
    7. Solt, Michael E & Swanson, Paul J, 1981. "On the Efficiency of the Markets for Gold and Silver," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 453-478, July.
    8. Choi, In, 1999. "Testing the Random Walk Hypothesis for Real Exchange Rates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 293-308, May-June.
    9. Officer, Lawrence H., 1989. "The Remarkable Efficiency of the Dollar-Sterling Gold Standard, 1890–1906," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 1-41, March.
    10. Officer, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Efficiency of the Dollar-Sterling Gold Standard, 1890-1908," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1038-1073, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andrew Urquhart, 2017. "How predictable are precious metal returns?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(14), pages 1390-1413, November.
    2. Bariviera, Aurelio F. & Font-Ferrer, Alejandro & Sorrosal-Forradellas, M. Teresa & Rosso, Osvaldo A., 2019. "An information theory perspective on the informational efficiency of gold price," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    3. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Jae H. Kim, 2014. "Precious metals shine? A market efficiency perspective," Working Papers hal-01010516, HAL.
    4. Boya, Christophe M., 2019. "From efficient markets to adaptive markets: Evidence from the French stock exchange," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 156-165.
    5. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Fouilloux, Jessica, 2011. "Testing the martingale difference hypothesis in CO2 emission allowances," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 27-35, January.
    6. repec:idn:journl:v:1:y:2019:i:sp1:p:1-26 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Kim, Jae H., 2015. "Will precious metals shine? A market efficiency perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 284-291.
    8. Peter C. B. Phillips & Sainan Jin, 2014. "Testing the Martingale Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 537-554, October.
    9. Righi, Marcelo Brutti & Ceretta, Paulo Sergio, 2013. "Risk prediction management and weak form market efficiency in Eurozone financial crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 384-393.
    10. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    11. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné, 2009. "Variance‐Ratio Tests Of Random Walk: An Overview," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 503-527, July.
    12. Omid Sabbaghi & Navid Sabbaghi, 2017. "The Chicago Climate Exchange and market efficiency: an empirical analysis," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(4), pages 711-734, October.
    13. Katusiime, Lorna & Shamsuddin, Abul & Agbola, Frank W., 2015. "Foreign exchange market efficiency and profitability of trading rules: Evidence from a developing country," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 315-332.
    14. Verheyden, Tim & De Moor, Lieven & Van den Bossche, Filip, 2015. "Towards a new framework on efficient markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 294-308.
    15. Montagnoli, Alberto & de Vries, Frans P., 2010. "Carbon trading thickness and market efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1331-1336, November.
    16. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Kim, Jae H., 2012. "Exchange-rate return predictability and the adaptive markets hypothesis: Evidence from major foreign exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1607-1626.
    17. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Kim, Jae H., 2017. "Adaptive markets hypothesis for Islamic stock indices: Evidence from Dow Jones size and sector-indices," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 100-112.
    18. Kim, Jae & Doucouliagos, Hristos & Stanley, T. D., 2014. "Market efficiency in Asian and Australasian stock markets: a fresh look at the evidence," Working Papers eco_2014_9, Deakin University, Department of Economics.
    19. Yang, Yan-Hong & Shao, Ying-Hui & Shao, Hao-Lin & Stanley, H. Eugene, 2019. "Revisiting the weak-form efficiency of the EUR/CHF exchange rate market: Evidence from episodes of different Swiss franc regimes," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 734-746.
    20. Md Lutfur Rahman & Mahbub Khan & Samuel A. Vigne & Gazi Salah Uddin, 2021. "Equity return predictability, its determinants, and profitable trading strategies," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 162-186, January.
    21. Ntim, Collins G. & English, John & Nwachukwu, Jacinta & Wang, Yan, 2015. "On the efficiency of the global gold markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 218-236.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Daily Gold Price Data; London Market; Market Efficiency; Gold Fixing; Hoarding;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions
    • Q3 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:eabhps:279905. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eabhhea.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.