Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн
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The expansion of global trade during the 19th century had been underpinned by the fixing of the value of currencies against gold. Issuers of currency on the so-called gold standard committed themselves to holding reserves of physical gold against the paper money that they issued. This provided an assurance that the issuer would not erode the value of its currency by simply printing more notes. Expansion of the money supply, therefore, was restricted by the pace of new gold discoveries, which were relatively infrequent.ssss1
Of course, in periods of distress such as times of war, governments can be tempted to expand the money supply by way of the printing presses in order to meet their obligations. Britain had last done this during the French Revolutionary War in 1797, when the threat of invasion had led to mass withdrawals of gold from the Bank of England. However, in the years 1815–1821, following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the Bank had withdrawn around half the paper money in circulation, driving prices down by 50 percent, and restored the gold standard. Though those six years had witnessed riots and economic distress, Britain's monetary discipline was seen as having set sterling apart from all other currencies in Europe. This in turn was credited for the country's emergence as the world's leading economic power over the half-century that followed.ssss1 As trade surpluses from Britain's lead in manufacturing exports generated excess capital searching for investments, London emerged from the 19th century as the banker to the world and sterling the pre-eminent global currency.