Μoney Supply and Greek Historical Monetary Statistics: Definition, Construction, Sources and Data

Abstract

The South-Eastern European Monetary History Network (SEEMHN) is a community of financial historians, economists and statisticians, established in April 2006 at the initiation of the Bulgarian National Bank and the Bank of Greece. Its objective is to spread knowledge on the economic history of the region in the context of European experience with a specific focus on financial, monetary and banking history. The SEEMHN Data Collection Task Force aims at establishing a historical database with 19th and 20th century financial and monetary data for the countries in the region. A set of data has already been published as an annex to the 2007 conference proceedings, released by the OeNB (2008, Workshops, no 13). The second stage of the SEEMHN Data Collection Task force includes reports from all participating central banks. For each country, historical aggregates are preceded by a description of the country’s monetary events and explanatory remarks. The data set refers to banknotes in circulation, reserves, discount rates and exchange rates. The frequency is monthly and the time span covers the period from 1870 and beyond to 1914. A foreword on the paramount importance of historical data series is supplemented by Prof. Michael Bordo (Rutgers University). An introduction on crosscountry historical comparison is written by Dr. Matthias Morys (University of York). Here we present data displays for each country written by Kliti Ceca, Kelmend Rexha and Elsida Orhan for Albania (Banka e Shqipërisë); Thomas Scheiber for Austria-Hungary (Oesterreichische Nationalbank); Kalina Dimitrova (Balgarska Narodna Banka) and Martin ivanov (Bulgarian Academy of Science) for Bulgaria; Sopfia Lazaretou for Greece (Bank of Greece); George Virgil Stoenescu, Elisabetalejan, Brindusa Costache and Adriana Iarovici Aloman for Romania (Banca Natională a României); Milan Sojic, Ljiljana Durdević, Sanja Borković and Olivera Jovanovic for Serbia (Narodna Banka Srbije). We strongly believe that by making the historical time series available to a wider audience for the first time ever, research interests in monetary and financial economics in this part of Europe will be further stimulated.

Keywords: Monetary policy,Time series

JEL Classification: E52