THE FRENCH CRIME OF 1873 - AN ESSAY ON THE EMERGENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL GOLD STANDARD, 1870-1880

This article attempts to provide a new view of how the bimetallic stan dard was maintained before 1873 and how it came to change into a monom etallic gold standard between 1870 and 1880. The conventional view tha t the gold standard emerged out of the contradictions of bimetallism i s not persuasive. Instead, this article claims that bimetallism might have survived and provides an alternative explanation of the emergence of the gold standard. Political and historical factors proved essenti al in precipitating the uncoordinated emergence of the international g old standard.