The curious incident of the franc in the Gambia: exchange rate instability and imperial monetary systems in the 1920s

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In 1922, British colonial Gambia demonetized the French 5-franc coin, which had been legal tender at a fixed rate in the colony since 1843. Until World War I, this rate was close to the international rate under the gold standard. When the franc began to depreciate in 1918, however, a gap emerged between the Gambian rate and the international rate, prompting a rapid influx of the coins. The demonetization cost the colonial administration over a year's revenue, affecting the later development of the colony. The 1920s have long been a fruitful period for the study of monetary history owing to the instability of exchange rates during and after the war. This article extends the study of this period to examine the impact of these changes on dependent colonies in West Africa, highlighting the importance of local compromises and particularities in colonial monetary systems.

Keywords: colonialism; exchange rates; West Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N17 N27 N47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hpe
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Financial History Review, December, 2015, 22(03), pp. 291-314. ISSN: 0968-5650

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/65070/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The curious incident of the franc in the Gambia: exchange rate instability and imperial monetary systems in the 1920s (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:65070

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().