Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242648 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
African Economic History Working Paper Series No. 19/2014
Publisher: 
African Economic History Network (AEHN), s.l.
Abstract: 
In 1922, the British colonial administration in the Gambia demonetized the French five franc coin, which had been legal tender since 1843. The cost of the demonetization was equal to a year's revenue, and undermined the stable fiscal position built up over previous decades. The floating exchange rates of the 1920s have long been a fruitful topic of research in European monetary history. Less attention has been paid to the impact of floating on colonial territories in the periphery. This paper uses the rather curious case of a British colonial administration paying to support the local value of the franc to illustrate that the 1920s are an equally useful period in the study of colonial monetary systems. A key aim of imperial governments was to ensure convertibility between colony and metropole, but local conditions in individual colonies often required compromises which went unnoticed until exchange rates became unstable.
Subjects: 
Africa
economic history
monetary systems
colonialism
JEL: 
N17
N27
N97
ISBN: 
978-91-981477-8-0
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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