The 1930s clearing agreements: another barter fable in monetary history
Marcelo Bruchanski
What the paper says
The interwar period, particularly the 1930s, is often characterized as a decade of chaos. Conventional wisdom, grounded in orthodox monetary theory, frequently refers to bilateral clearing agreements of the time as a form of barter. First, orthodox monetary theory creates a myth surrounding the gold-sterling standard, portraying it as an automatic system with exceptional results that deserved to be restored. Subsequently, it discredits clearing agreements as primitive barter. In contrast, heterodox monetary theory, which focuses on currency hierarchy and monetary circuit theory, acknowledges that the gold-sterling standard is actually asymmetric, gold does not move and there is no automatic mechanism for stability. This paper offers a heterodox perspective on the 1930s, demonstrating that clearing agreements are undoubtedly not barter and that inconvertible money still qualifies as money.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.