Politics, Economics and History of Asia (2008/06/24)
Date:16:00‐18:00, June 24(Tue.)，2008
Venue:Room No. 207 on the 2nd floor of East building
Speaker：Professor Richard von Glahn (University of California,
Los Angeles)
Topic："Multiple Currency Circuits and the Origins of the Paper
Money Standard in China in the 12th-13th Centuries"
Abstract:
The monetary system of the Southern Song period was characterized by distinctive regional monetary circuits and multiple currencies, including bronze and iron coin, paper money, and silver. Although bronze coin remained the standard unit of account in government finance and private trade throughout the Song, during the Southern Song period a new monetary standard emerged based on paper money. Moreover, silver developed into a key component of the Southern Song fiscal system. Silver acquired particular importance as the hard currency reserve that backed the new paper currency. Thus, by the beginning of the 13th century, silver had begun to usurp the place of bronze coin as a store of value. Bronze coin remained the standard unit of account, but its circulation diminished over the course of the Southern Song period. Indeed, I argue that the substitution of paper money and silver for many of the functions once performed exclusively by bronze coin was a catalyst for the massive export of Song coin to Japan during the 13th century (and later to Southeast Asia as well), and paved the way for the creation of the purely paper currency monetary system of the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty.
Contact: SUGIHARA, Kaoru