On performativity in the current credit crisis

Posted on 07. May, 2012

I have very much enjoyed Marc Flandreau's latest essay ('The Vanishing Banker') on the performativity of economists's language in the enfoldng current credit crisis (you can find it in the Financial History Review, issue 19.1 (2012), pp. 1-19). From the abstract:

Note to self (kind of): on the functions of "specie held abroad" (在外正貨) in Japan's gold standard system

Posted on 04. Apr, 2012
IMGP1616

Intro

Contrary to pretty much all other aspects of Japanese financial and monetary history, the country's decision to adopt the gold standard has attracted a great deal of attention in the specialized literature. In fact, it has at several times been treated as a showcase of the textbook explanations for why nations undertake a costly monetary reform program in order to adopt a 'hard peg', i.e. with gold, and thus with other currencies pegged to gold.

Seminar: De-Teleologising History of Money and Its Theory (II) / 国際ワークショップ「世界貨幣史と貨幣論の再構築」

Posted on 01. Feb, 2012
bank of china

Time for an update on stuff that is going on over here (Tokyo, that is):

WORKSHOPS De-Teleologising History of Money and Its Theory (II)
Dates: 15 and 16 February 2012.
Venue: Main Meeting Room, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia,
University of Tokyo
abstracts: http://www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/news/upimg2009/news120215-16.abstract.pdf

On fixed and floating exchange rates

Posted on 08. Dec, 2011
japanese money traders

Lately, Eurozone troubles and several chances to present and rethink some of my own work (especially on Japan's decision to move on the gold standard in 1897) had me reconsider the old debate on fixed versus floating exchange rates, and the desirability of one over the other. Seen in historical terms, the debate was -not surprisingly- ignited by the experience of the difficult interwar years, specifically the gross instability associated with floating exchange rates in the twenties.