Synopses & Reviews
Officer begins this book with a historical perspective of the monetary standards of the United States and Britain. He then develops data on exchange rates, mint parity and gold points, with which he investigates three important features of Anglo-American monetary history. First, the integration of the American foreign-exchange market over time. Second, it is proved that gold-point arbitrage is markedly more efficient than either interest arbitrage or forward speculation. Third, regime efficiency is explored from standpoints of both private agents and policy-makers; the 1925-1931 gold standard, though less durable than the pre-war standard, is nevertheless shown to be surprisingly stable. The book will serve as a Dollar-Sterling handbook for those interested in this important aspect of international monetary history.
Review
'Students of Dollar-Sterling exchange rates will find this book to be a superb US-British financial history of the period 1791-1931 as well as an original statistical and analytic study of how the gold standard worked.' Anna J. Schwartz, National Bureau of Economic Research
Review
'... the book is a beautiful example of the best kind of analysis of market micro-structure, and deserves to be on the shelves of any serious student of the history of the dollar-sterling exchange rate.' The Economic Journal
Synopsis
This book investigates US-UK monetary relations, 1791 to 1931. It presents and examines new data on the exchange rate and related variables, and will serve as a dollar-sterling handbook for those interested in this important aspect of international monetary history. In its presentation of theories and results centred on the precise location of the exchange rate, the book breaks new ground in our understanding of the gold standard. The study is distinguished for its emphasis on the institutional and legal aspects of the gold standard.
Table of Contents
List of figures; List of tables; Preface; List of symbols; 1. Introduction; Part I. Monetary Standards: 2. The various monetary standards; 3. American monetary standard; 4. British monetary standard; Part II. Exchange Rate: 5. Parity; 6. Exchange-rate data; 7. Exchange-market integration; Part III. Gold Points: 8. Gold points: theory and practice; 9. Gold-point estimates; Part IV. External and Internal Integration: 10. External integration; 11. Internal integration; Part V. Market Efficiency: 12. Theory of market efficiency; 13. Empirical testing of market efficiency; Part VI. Regime Efficiency; 14. Market forces; 15. Policy variables; 16. Net outcome; Part VII. Conclusions: 17. Summary and conclusions; Notes; References; Index.