ABSTRACT
The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in late 1918 not only signalled the split of a political entity into several new ones, but also an end to economic and monetary union. Attempts to save the economic and monetary links were unsuccessful, as the euphoria for the newly gained independence called for the common institutions to be disman tled.2 The new countries wanted to establish new political but also new economic institutions. Among the latter were national central banks. It took the successor states more than four years, the repeated experience of hyperinflation and foreign interventions in several of the countries to establish their own national central banks. The developments on the way to stabilization and the establishment of banks of issue show many similarities in the respective countries. The politicians in the newly formed countries had to realize that their economies were still very interdependent. In particular the developments in Austria and Hungary, but also those in Poland, showed many similarities: large fiscal imbal ances, the need for central bank financing, hyperinflation, foreign financial interventions and economic stabilization with the help of the League of Nations.
