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SUMMARY:German Silver Diplomacy and the Emergence of the Classical Gold St
 andard\, 1871-1892 - Sabine Schneider (London School of Economics)
DTSTART:20221103T171500Z
DTEND:20221103T183000Z
UID:TALK178892@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Martin Andersson
DESCRIPTION:Imperial Germany’s monetary union in the wake of the Franco-
 Prussian War (1870/71) necessitated the liquidation of vast quantities of 
 German silver stocks on world markets. Between 1871 and 1879\, the German 
 Chancellery engaged an international network of banks and refiners to acqu
 ire gold-backed assets in return for selling its silver in Europe and in S
 outh and East Asia. This paper reconstructs the Chancellery’s network of
  financial agents and presents the most comprehensive picture yet of the t
 ranscontinental bullion flows that underpinned Germany’s monetary reform
 s. Based on a wealth of banking and government records\, the paper yields 
 a more nuanced understanding of the geographic outlets and strategy of Ger
 many’s bullion trade and its impact on the global silver glut that set i
 n from 1872. The ensuing macroeconomic disruption that accompanied Germany
 ’s demonetization gave rise to both prolonged uncertainty in bullion mar
 kets and growing diplomatic tensions across Europe.\n \nGermany’s curren
 cy reforms not only released significant bullion and capital flows between
  the financial centres in Europe\; the Chancellery’s secretiveness about
  its monetary operations also strained its economic relations with Britain
 \, India\, and the Latin Monetary Union. Bismarck’s government\, as this
  paper argues\, pursued a selling tactic of deliberate ambiguity to exploi
 t its first-mover-position in the silver market. But its tactical advantag
 e proved short-lived\, and the government’s official silence about its r
 emaining silver stocks skewed market expectations and amplified concerns o
 ver German ‘silver dumping’. Growing Anglo-German tensions over the Re
 ich’s handling of its demonetization eventually culminated in the London
  ‘silver scare’ of 1875–76\, an episode that fuelled international r
 eproval of Germany’s currency diplomacy. This paper finds that the Chanc
 ellery’s strategy during the 1870s unintentionally stoked uncertainty ar
 ound a global silver crisis and reveals how British diplomats and their Ge
 rman counterparts ensured that information asymmetries were gradually miti
 gated. It further shows that silver’s prolonged depreciation motivated t
 entative steps towards bilateral cooperation between London and Berlin\, w
 ith the aim of reducing market volatility in the early period of the class
 ical gold standard.
LOCATION:History Faculty\, Room 6
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