Question

Why did the gold standard produce economic stability before 1914, but instability after 1919?

Answer 1

A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. Three types can be distinguished: specie, bullion, and exchange.

he gold standard is a monetary system where a country's currency or paper money has a value directly linked to gold. With the gold standard, countries agreed to convert paper money into a fixed amount of gold. A country that uses the gold standard sets a fixed price for gold and buys and sells gold at that price. That fixed price is used to determine the value of the currency. For example, if the U.S. sets the price of gold at $500 an ounce, the value of the dollar would be 1/500th of an ounce of gold.

The Rise of the Gold Standard

The gold standard is a monetary system in which paper money is freely convertible into a fixed amount of gold. In other words, in such a monetary system gold backs the value of money. Between 1696 and 1812, the development and formalization of the gold standard began as the introduction of paper money posed some problems.

In 1797, due to too much credit being created with paper money, the Restriction Bill in England suspended the conversion of notes into gold. Also, constant supply imbalances between gold and silver created tremendous stress to England's economy. A gold standard was needed to instill the necessary controls on money.

By 1821, England became the first country to officially adopt a gold standard. The century's dramatic increase in global trade and production brought large discoveries of gold, which helped the gold standard remain intact well into the next century. As all trade imbalances between nations were settled with gold, governments had strong incentive to stockpile gold for more difficult times. Those stockpiles still exist today.

The international gold standard emerged in 1871 following the adoption of it by Germany. By 1900, the majority of the developed nations were linked to the gold standard. Ironically, the U.S. was one of the last countries to join. (A strong silver lobby prevented gold from being the sole monetary standard within the U.S. throughout the 19th century.)

From 1871 to 1914, the gold standard was at its pinnacle. During this period near-ideal political conditions existed in the world. Governments worked very well together to make the system work, but this all changed forever with the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.

The Fall of the Gold Standard

With World War I, political alliances changed, international indebtedness increased and government finances deteriorated. While the gold standard was not suspended, it was in limbo during the war, demonstrating its inability to hold through both good and bad times. This created a lack of confidence in the gold standard that only exacerbated economic difficulties. It became increasingly apparent that the world needed something more flexible on which to base its global economy.

At the same time, a desire to return to the idyllic years of the gold standard remained strong among nations. As the gold supply continued to fall behind the growth of the global economy, the British pound sterling and U.S. dollar became the global reserve currencies. Smaller countries began holding more of these currencies instead of gold. The result was an accentuated consolidation of gold into the hands of a few large nations.

The stock market crash of 1929 was only one of the world's post-war difficulties. The pound and the French franc were horribly misaligned with other currencies; war debts and repatriations were still stifling Germany; commodity prices were collapsing; and banks were overextended. Many countries tried to protect their gold stock by raising interest rates to entice investors to keep their deposits intact rather than convert them into gold. These higher interest rates only made things worse for the global economy, and finally, in 1931, the gold standard in England was suspended, leaving only the U.S. and France with large gold reserves. (For more on interest rates and gold, see: How a Rate Hike Could Impact Gold)

Then in 1934, the U.S. government revalued gold from $20.67/oz to $35.00/oz, raising the amount of paper money it took to buy one ounce, to help improve its economy. As other nations could convert their existing gold holdings into more U.S dollars, a dramatic devaluation of the dollar instantly took place. This higher price for gold increased the conversion of gold into U.S. dollars effectively allowing the U.S. to corner the gold market. Gold production soared so that by 1939 there was enough in the world to replace all global currency in circulation.

As World War II was coming to an end, the leading western powers met to put together the Bretton Woods Agreement, which would be the framework for the global currency markets until 1971. Within the Bretton Woods system, all national currencies were valued in relation to the U.S. dollar, which became the dominant reserve currency. The dollar, in turn, was convertible to gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce. The global financial system continued to operate upon a gold standard, albeit in a more indirect manner.

At the end of WWII, the U.S. had 75% of the world's monetary gold, and the dollar was the only currency still backed directly by gold. But as the world rebuilt itself after WWII, the U.S. saw its gold reserves steadily drop as money flowed out to help war-torn nations as well as to pay for its own high demand for imports. The high inflationary environment of the late 1960s sucked out the last bit of air from the gold standard.

In 1968, a gold pool (which dominated gold supply), which included the U.S and a number of European nations stopped selling gold on the London market, allowing the market to freely determine the price of gold. From 1968 to 1971, only central banks could trade with the U.S. at $35/oz.

In August 1971, then U.S. President Richard Nixon severed the direct convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold. With this decision, the international currency market, which had become increasingly reliant on the dollar since the enactment of the Bretton Woods Agreement, lost its formal connection to gold. The U.S. dollar, and, by extension, the global financial system which it effectively sustained, entered the era of fiat money in which it currently resides.