ABSTRACT
Hayek (1937, 4) defined “monetary nationalism” as “the doctrine that a country’s share in the world’s supply of money should not be left to be determined by the same principles and the same mechanism as those which determine the relative amounts of money in its different regions or localities.” Full-blown monetary internationalism—the antithesis of monetary nationalism—entails a globally homogeneous monetary system. In the world of a globally homogeneous monetary system, there are no national monetary authorities who control national monetary aggregates. Monetary internationalism is in several respects a matter of degree. The simplest example of a “truly” international system, to use Hayek’s phrase, would be a world of two countries where only uniform gold coins were used as money in both countries.
