Medieval monetary practices reveal an alternative approach to currency stabilisation. This column examines the role of Mint prices as a device for stabilising the medieval bullion market. This might seem to be of limited relevance to managing modern currencies, yet a longer historical view helps to highlight different approaches to currency stabilisation. This raises a question for modern policymakers: should the price of some of the asset counterparts of today’s money be anchored, as bullion prices once were under the Mint system?VOX
Currency stabilisation and asset-price anchors: An examination of medieval monetary practices with some implications for modern policy
Anthony Hotson | Research Fellow at the Winton Institute for Monetary History, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
