The Gold Standard

In Our Time: History

BBC

History

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ ? minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the system that flourished from 1870 when gold became dominant and more widely available, following gold rushes in California and Australia. Banknotes could be exchanged for gold at central banks, the coins in circulation could be gold (as with the sovereign in the image above, initially worth £1), gold could be freely imported and exported, and many national currencies around the world were tied to gold and so to each other. The idea began in Britain, where sterling was seen as good as gold, and when other countries rushed to the Gold Standard the confidence in their currencies grew, and world trade took off and, for a century, gold was seen as a vital component of the world economy, supporting stability and confidence. The system came with constraints on government ability to respond to economic crises, though, and has been blamed for deepening and prolonging the Great Depression of the 1930s.

With

Catherine Schenk Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford

Helen Paul Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton

And

Matthias Morys Senior Lecturer in Economic History at the University of York

Produced by Eliane Glaser and Simon Tillotson

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:04.8	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:07.3	There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our
0:10.8	programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:14.7	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:16.6	Hello, the century between 1870 and 1970 was the age of the Gold Standard,
0:21.8	where currencies around the world were in some way tied to the price of gold.
0:26.5	Britain had a gold standard long before, with sovereigns you could use either to buy a
0:30.3	pound's worth of goods or melt down into a pound's worth of gold.
0:33.7	It was sound money. When other countries rushed to the same system and confidence in
0:38.2	their currency grew, World Trade took off, and when World War set trade back it was
0:42.8	believed that a gold standard was essential to rescue it.
0:46.4	We're going to discuss the gold standard of Catherine Schink, Professor of Economic and
0:50.2	Social History at the University of Oxford. Matthias Morris, Senior Lecturer in Economic
0:54.8	History at the University of York, and Helen Paul, Lecturer in Economics and
0:58.6	Economic History at the University of Southampton. Helen, Helen Paul, when did gold become
1:03.5	valuable in trade in Europe? Well, gold had been viewed as valuable since
1:08.6	time immemorial, really, because people found that they could melt it down,
1:13.6	it doesn't tarnish. It's not something you can easily, you can't create gold,
1:18.9	you can't have a fake gold, as it were. So anything that was valuable that could be used
1:24.1	as a store of value that could be used as a medium of exchange would be helpful in trade.
1:30.4	However, there are other things as well that could also be used, like say silver,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -1165 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.