The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise presents the Digital Archive on Currency Boards, a trove of official documents on the subject. The documents were gathered and indexed by students under the direction of Steve H. Hanke, co-director of the Institute and Professor of Applied Economics, with advice from Kurt Schuler, Senior Fellow in Financial History at the Center for Financial Stability in New York. Nicholas Krus, a research associate at the Institute, made the largest contribution to the effort.

In the study of money, official documents are a key source of statistics and narrative facts. The Internet has led most of the world’s central banks and other monetary authorities to post their annual reports and other major documents online. Pre-Internet material is harder to find, especially if the monetary authority in question no longer exists. The Digital Archive on Currency Boards is the largest collection of annual reports and other official documents about any type of monetary system. It will offer documents spanning more than a century for more than 60 countries. Documents are being posted in batches as time permits, and further documents will be posted as they are found and cataloged. Documents are in the public domain according to the copyright law of their country of publication, or have been permitted by the copyright holders to be posted.

The Institute also issues a working paper series on currency boards. Most of the working papers are by students at The Johns Hopkins University and some draw on material in the Digital Archive. One recently released paper, by Rahee Jung and Demilade Obayomi, is a guide to the Digital Archive. Another, by Seung Jae Oh, examines high-frequency data from currency boards that formerly existed in Palestine, the Straits Settlements, and West Africa. Oh’s paper includes spreadsheets that make the data he gathered available for other researchers in electronic form for the first time. Future working papers will eventually make available in spreadsheet form extensive annual and high-frequency balance sheet data on most of the currency boards that have ever existed. It will be the most comprehensive collection of balance sheet data on any type of monetary system.

The Digital Archive and the working papers will be of interest to anyone interested in monetary history or monetary policy.

Articles

• Hanke. Steve H. “In love with the lev” OMFIF Bulletin Vol. 11 Ed. 3. Summer 2020. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “It’s Time for Private Cryptocurrency Boards” National Review. 16 June 2020. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. and Tanev, Todor. “Long live the currency board” Central Banking Vol. 30 No. 3. Mar. 2020. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Currency Boards Have a Good Record and Work Well” The Wall Street Journal. 12 Jan. 2020.
• Hanke. Steve H. “Making the lira ‘as good as gold’” OMFIF Bulletin Vol. 11 Ed. 1. January 2020. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Farewell to the CFA Franc: Macron and Ouattara End a Colonial Relic” The Wall Street Journal. 30 Dec. 2019.
• Hanke, Steve H. and Tanev, Todor. “On Extending the Currency Board Principle in Bulgaria: Long Live the Currency Board” Studies in Applied Economics No. 140. Nov. 2019. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “The Ever-Solid Hong Kong Dollar” Forbes. 5 July 2019. Web.
• Greenwood, John and Steve H. Hanke. “Hong Kong’s Economy Is Going Strong” The Wall Street Journal. 24 June 2019.
• Greenwood, John and Steve H. Hanke. “A Lesson in the Virtue of a Stable Currency” The Wall Street Journal. 2 April 2019.
• Hanke, Steve H and Edward Li. “The Cayman Currency Board: An Island of Stability” Cayman Financial Review. No. 54. 4 Feb. 2019. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Without a Currency Board, Venezuela’s Opposition Will Fail” Forbes. 31 Jan. 2019. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “The SAGE Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society: Currency Boards” Sage Publications. 23 May 2018. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Long Live the Lev: Bulgaria Should Hold on to Its Currency Board” Forbes. 30 Jan. 2018. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Iran Should Go for Gold, Not a Currency Reform Illusion” Forbes. 25 Oct. 2017. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Remembrances of a Currency Reformer: Some Notes and Sketches of the Field” Studies in Applied Economics No. 55. June. 2016. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “A Golden Currency Board” The Swiss Derivatives Review. Summer 2012. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “A Gold-based Currency Board, Please” Globe Asia. May 2012. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Reflections on Currency Reform and the Euro” Econ Journal Watch Vol. 7. No. 1. Jan. 2010. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Why Argentina Did Not Have a Currency Board” Central Banking Vol. 18 No. 3. Feb. 2008. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Scorecard for Bulgaria’s Currency Board” Central Banking Vol. 18 No. 1. Aug. 2007. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. and Matt Sekerke. “How Bulgaria Is Destroying Its ‘Currency Board” Central Banking Vol. 14 No. 1. Aug. 2003. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Currency Board’ a Misnomer for Argentine System” The Financial Times. 17 Jun 2003. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Iraq, Regime Changes and Currency Boards” National Post. 28 May 2003. Web.
• Hanke, Steve and Matt Sekerke. “St Helena’s Forgotten Currency Board” Central Banking Vol. 13 No. 3. Jan. 2003. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “On Dollarization and Currency Boards: Error and Deception” Policy Reform Vol. 5 No. 4. Jan. 2002. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Currency Boards” The Annals of the American Academy No. 579. Dec. 2001. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Currency Board Critics Cite Selective Facts” National Post. 7 Jun 2000. Web.
• Hanke, Steve H. “Create a Currency-Board Law for Russia” The Wall Street Journal Europe. 7 Sep 1998. Web.

Digital Archive

Link to additional currency board archive materials (updated October 6, 2020)

• Argentina
• Bahamas
• Bahrain
• Barbados
• Bermuda
• British Caribbean Territories
• British Guiana (Guyana)
• British Honduras (Belize)
• Brunei
• Burma (Myanmar)
• Canada
• Central Africa (Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
• Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
• Colonial Possessions
• Colonial Statistical Abstract
• Cyprus
• East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
• Falkland Islands
• Fiji
• Gambia
• Gibraltar
• Gold Coast (Ghana)
• India
• Iraq
• Ireland
• Jamaica
• Jordan
• Kenya
• Kuwait
• Libya
• Malaya (Malaysia)
• Malta
• Mauritius
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• North Borneo
• Oman
• Palestine
• Philippine Islands
• Qatar and Dubai
• Quarterly Digest of Statistics
• Saint Helena
• Sarawak
• Seychelles
• Sierra Leone
• Solomon Islands
• Somalia
• South Arabia (southern Yemen)
• Straits Settlements (Singapore)
• Sudan
• Tanganyika (Tanzania)
• Tonga
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Uganda
• United Arab Emirates
• West Africa (Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone)
• Western Pacific (Fiji)
• Western Samoa (Samoa)
• Yemen
• Zanzibar