A Brief History of International Monetary Systems
The Gold Standard
From 1880 until 1914, the global economy operated under an international monetary system known as the gold standard. Under this system, the amount of gold and currency in a country represented the supply of money, and each country set the value of its currency in terms of gold, known as the mint parity. For example, the Bank of England set the mint parity of the pound at £20 per ounce of gold, and the U.S. Treasury set the mint parity of the dollar at $40 per ounce of gold. Then the exchange rate of the pound relative to the dollar was set at two dollars per pound. There were no formal agreements between countries, but each country tried to maintain the mint parity ...
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