ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of Scandinavian Monetary or Currency Union (SMU) and describes its origins, its evolution, its impact and its collapse. At the close of the twentieth century, three Scandinavian countries — Sweden, Norway and Denmark — chose to tread different monetary paths. SMU's rules were set out in a currency agreement reached in December 1872 and given legal force in May 1873. The basis of SMU was thus the gold standard, putting an end to the silver standard in Scandinavia. SMU was a truly decentralized union with its three member central banks, the Bank of Denmark, the Bank of Norway and the Bank of Sweden, being independent of each other, only united by the agreements of 1873-1875. SMU does not appear to have been the subject of any notable political or financial tensions before 1914, with the exception of the independence of Norway in 1905.
