One of the most important measures to counter the devastating effects of the 2008 crisis was intensive international central bank cooperation. Major central banks acted as liquidity guarantors by creating various types of credit swap arrangements. Many contemporary observers have seen this as a ‘new’ type of cooperation between central banks, not only in terms of its scope but also its nature. But central banks have always operated at the intersection of the national and the international (Eichengreen, 1984, 1996; Flandreau 1997; James 2013). In history, the provision of services such as clearing, and hence short-term credit through drawing rights, lending or/and rediscounting, was in many cases part of the daily routine of central banks. Even in strict exchange rate regimes such as the classical gold standard, various types of foreign assets, also held abroad, were important instruments for central banks to act as shock absorbers for the national economy (Ugolini, 2012, 2017; Bazot, Monnet & Morys 2022). In the Scandinavian Monetary Union (SMU), these daily clearing arrangements between central banks served to maintain liquidity and smoothen the effects of international capital flows (Ögren & Trautwein 2022). 

This workshop gather researchers working on international central bank cooperation, both formal and more informal through clearing and other operations, both in day-to-day operations and in times of crisis. The workshop will be hybrid with in-person and online, and the working language will be English. It also is the preparatory workshop to the World Economic History Conference session on “International central bank cooperation”

Organisers :

Vincent Bignon Banque de France, Anders Ögren Université d’Uppsala et Hans-Michael Trautwein Université d’Oldenburg.

Program :

Tuesday 11 March 2025 

9h00
Coffee 

9h15
Introduction: Anders Ögren (Uppsala University)

9h30-11h00

Mark Metzler (University of Washington)  “Japan and Central Bank Cooperation in the Age of the Gold Standard, 1890s-1920s” (On line)
Masato Shizume (Waseda University) “Retreat from the international central bank cooperation: The case of Japan in the 1930s.”

11h00-11h30 
Coffee break

11h30-13h00

Nektarios Aslanidis (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) & Matthias Morys (University of York)“Cooperation between Latin America’s conversion offices and European central banks, 1895-1938”
Danila Raskov (Uppsala University) “Cooperation of the State Bank of the Russian Empire in the Age of the Gold Standard”

13h00-14h15 
Lunch

14h15-15h45

Anders Ögren (Uppsala University) & Hans Michael Trautwein (Oldenburg University) “Clearing and credit: a quantitative analysis of the Scandinavian central banks’ cooperation 1928-193”
Gjermund Forfang Rongved (University of Inland Norway)“Nordic Central Bank Cooperation 1931-1939 – Challenging an era of deglobalisation and uncertainty”

16h15-17h45

Juan Flores (University of Geneva) and Gianandrea Nodari (University of Geneva) “Bail-in or bail-out? Revisiting the Credit Anstalt Crisis of 1931”
Pierre Siklos (Wilfrid Laurier University) “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Bank of Canada vs the Bank of England and the Fed”.

 

Wednesday 12 March 2025 

9h30 – 11h45

Ioan Balaban (Uppsala University) and Liang Zhao (Guangdong Ocean University and Lund University)”The financial origins of our times: the Federal Reserve, the rise of the Eurodollar market and the collapse of Bretton Woods (1960-1971)”
Ilaria Pasotti (University of Turin) and Giandomenico Piluso (University of Turin) “An operational framework for the coordination of monetary policies in the EMS: The Bank of Italy and the Committee of Governors of the European Economic Community”
Åsa Malmström Rognes (Stockholm School of Economics/Uppsala University)“Revisiting the motivations and objections for central bank collaboration in Asia – the Asian Monetary Fund and its precedents

11h45 
Lunch and Discussions