Core or periphery ? The Credibility of the Habsburg Currency, 1867-1914
Résumé
We explore the history of the Austro-Hungarian currency through thefloating exchange rate regime of the 1870s and 1880s and the adoptionof the gold standard in 1892. Though actual convertibility remainedan elusive dream, the A-H Bank was able to stabilise the currency byestablishing a credible (de facto) shadow-gold standard by 1896.Though the currency fluctuated by as much as 7% per annum before1896, credibility was established very quickly, and thereafter thecurrency was successfully kept within an informal target zone of0.4%, despite of the well-known internal (and external) politicalproblems of the monarchy and in spite of a number of major financialcrisis of foreign origin. This remarkable record positions the DualMonarchy squarely in between the elite core and the plebeianperipheral countries of the time.