Central Bank Co-operation in Historical Perspective: a Sceptical View

Abstract : It has been argued that central bank cooperation was important to the working of the gold standard before 1914. This article takes a critical view of the central bank cooperation thesis and, relying on new archival research as well as on secondary sources, offers an alternative picture of central bank relations during the nineteenth century. Central bank cooperation was exceptionally never reciprocal and always failed to institutionalize: scholars seeking to explain the stability of the gold standard will have to look in other directions