Gold Standard

Why Pick Gold As The Standard?

- First known metal. Valuable throughout the ages because of scarcity. High value for its beauty and resistance to corrosion and rust.
- Soft and easy to work with (very malleable and can be easily shaped into various forms). As a result, gold had long been used as a form of money and store of wealth by merchants and traders.
- Its versatility for many applications, such as jewelry and adornment. Means of payment of armies.
- Supplant silver as the basic unit of international trade at various times (Islamic Golden Age, peak of Italian trading during the Renaissance, during the 19th century).
- Remain the metal of monetary reserve accounting until the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971.

How the Gold Standard Works

The gold standard was a commitment by participating countries to fix the prices of their domestic currencies in terms of a specified amount of gold. National money and other forms of money (bank deposits and notes) were freely converted into gold at the fixed price

Pros and Cons of Gold Standard

Group: Minh, Dan, Nick

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard