Prvo jugoslovansko leto Slovencev – gospodarski ukrepi, razhajanja in negotovosti

The discussion deals with economic developments in 1919, the first year of the interwar period and the first Yugoslav year. In the case of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which is the subject of the analysis, the 1919 year was a complex process due to dynamics of transition to and establishment of new state. At the same time, the Habsburg monarchy was still very much alive in its concepts of regulating everyday private, social and economic life. The author analyzes these processes on the example of the eight-hour working day, agrarian reform, nostrification, war loans, currency reform and entrepreneurial practices in 1919.

The Period of Inflation, 1919–1923

The years after the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on 28 June and the adoption of the Weimar Constitution on 11 August 1919 were dominated by inflation, which culminated in hyperinflation in 1923 and resulted in a currency reform. The republic mastered severe political crises such as the Kapp putsch in 1920, upheavals, and hyperinflation. At the same time, political life remained almost permanently in post-revolutionary crisis mode, suffering from both internal and external uncertainties, including reparations, which played a major role. Between 1919 and 1923, the government changed eight times. In particular, the year 1923 was marked by economic, political, and social states of emergency. After the political revolution in November 1918, inflation proved to be a revolution of a different kind, which contemporaries saw as crisis of the social order, but also as the expression of destructive modernity.

The Shanghai Mint and Establishing a Silver Standard in China, 1920–1933

This chapter uses the story of the Shanghai Mint as a lens to examine the financial history of China in the 1920s and early 1930s to show how familiar events occurred in economic history. It reviews political and economic changes within China that influenced monetary reform on the last silver frontier. It also talks about the construction of the mint, which started in 1921 and produced coins in the spring of 1933. The chapter refers to China's movement from the warlord period of the late 1910s and early 1920s to the Nationalist period wherein the new government inherited the goals of currency reform from its predecessors and the half-finished physical plant of the Shanghai Mint. It looks at the history of the mint that connects small technical details to much larger political and economic issues, such as the types of coining equipment to be used and the design of coins.

Provincial Silver Coins and the Fragmenting Chinese Monetary System, 1887–1900

This chapter mentions Qing officials in the 1880s who believed the influx of foreign silver coins was a negative development that had to be opposed as it represented a violation of the dynasty's economic rights. It argues that strengthening the dynasty with more revenue was not the same as creating a unified national monetary system, which was an emerging goal for figures in the late Qing. It also introduces and analyzes disagreements within China about how to reform the coinage and monetary system in the context of political decentralization, including the role of silver. The chapter focuses on the intellectual and economic impetus to mint coins, as well as the problems of mint administration. It examines the tension between the power of provincial officials and the Qing central government, which acted as a constraint on the currency reform and state-building activities of the dynasty.

Funny Money: Philanthropic Giving and the Money Illusion

This study argues that the size of philanthropic gifts is affected by donors’ perception of the value of their money. The essay examines aggregate giving to Bread for the World in former East Germany before and after two currency reforms and shows that decades of overvaluing the West German Deutschmark led East Germans to give less after the first currency reform while the second currency reform did not lead to such a drop off. The essay employs East German jokes to illustrate popular views of both East and West German currency that developed over time. It indicates that East Germans developed a perceived value of money separate from its real purchasing power, which affected their philanthropic donations. These findings are applicable to small and large philanthropic gifts, especially across currencies, as in international giving.

From “Ōkuma Finance” to “Matsukata Finance,” 1873–1881

This chapter examines the transition from the expansionary policies of Ōkuma Shigenobu to the contractionary ones of Sano Tsunetami as background to the Matsukata reform, which in large measure ended up combining his predecessors' approaches. It shows the critical difference between the Ōkuma and Matsukata approaches to financial policy. Ōkuma sought to engineer a rapid currency reform using the proceeds from overseas bond issuance while applying the savings from austerity to continue the expansionary economic policies he had pursued as finance minister. The adoption of his new foreign-borrowing scheme in the summer of 1881 signaled a softening of official commitment to fiscal retrenchment. Matsukata intended to continue the Sano initiatives with the exception of borrowing abroad and founding a British-style central bank. Yet in practice he would diverge from much of the Sano austerity program in ways that differed from both classical and neoliberal orthodoxy.

Exacting Change

After the Assembly overhauled the currency system and issued assignats in denominations too large for retail trade, a small change shortage rocked the nation. To facilitate marketplace exchanges, the Dames, their suppliers, their clients, and other merchants turned to promissory notes. These bills were inadequately backed by local financial societies and contributed to rapid inflation. Beginning in 1790, the lack of practical cash spurred market actors to innovatively ally across guilds and occupational boundaries. Vegetable merchants formed coalitions with carpenters to demand new assignat denominations, retailers joined forces with brokers to protect promissory notes, and clients and merchants rallied to support overlapping credit networks. Thus, the Dames and their allies forged novel socioeconomic associations before the Le Chapelier law and d’Allarde decree legally dismantled the corporate world in 1791. Money thus became a concrete conduit for effecting the core social transformations at the heart of the Revolution. While spurring the state to protect the monetary networks of productive citizens, the Dames and their allies also changed the trajectory of national currency reform.