Money Doctors Around the Globe: A Historical Perspective (2024) (Studies in Economic History)

By: Andrés Álvarez and Vincent Bignon and Anders Ögren and Masato Shizume

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Synopsis: This book focuses on worldwide historical experiences of monetary reforms and the reformist minds behind them: the money doctors. The process of doctoring is the process of listening to many pieces of information and sorting them in order to correctly diagnose the causes of the problem and derive the appropriate cure, if it exists. A money doctor is “a person who, helped by theoretical and practical knowledge, advises and/or proposes to act on how to build a stable monetary and financial system or to repair ongoing monetary turbulences.” Economists and policy makers are money doctors when their involvement includes the observation and diagnostic of the monetary and financial troubles and the proposition for a cure. Each contribution highlights the theoretical underpinning of the doctors, and the key factors for the success or failures of the reform they have promoted. We collect cases from Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania from the 16th to the 20th century anddiscuss their aims, strategies, and consequences to draw implications for today.