ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: The Italian Debate on Exchange Rate Control During the Thirties
Author:
During the Thirties, after the collapse of the gold standard and the onset of the Great Depression, many countries tried to insulate their economies from external constraints by reducing capital mobility and limiting currency convertibility. In some cases, these measures enabled monetary authorities to adopt expansionary policies in order to increase production and to reduce unemployment in the short run. In Germany and in Italy, exchange controls became a means to divert scarce resources towards sectors which appeared to be strategic in case of war. My paper critically reexamines the interwar debate on these topics among Italian economists and policy makers, in the light of contemporary theory. To this end, it provides detailed analysis of the contributions on this subject by such authors as Attilio Cabiati, Luigi Einaudi, Gino Borgatta, Marco Fanno, Giuseppe Ugo Papi and Giovanni Demaria. One of the aims of the paper is to demonstrate that, in spite of strict limitations imposed by the regime on academic research, the literature on the subject in Italy was largely characterized by high quality theoretical debate and can therefore shed new light on some structural problems concerning international monetary relations.
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