Autonomy vs. stability: the relationship between internal and external money in Bulgaria (1879-1912)

Since the establishment of the international gold standard, at the end of the 19th century, the possibility of attaining monetary stability in peripheral countries has been increasingly associated with the decision to peg their currency to an external reference. By contrast, the monetary system adopted in Europe over the previous five centuries had assured stability through the articulation between an internal currency for domestic exchanges and an external currency for foreign trade. The object of this research is to study the coexistence of different standards in the early history of Bulgarian money as a peculiar instance of the passage from the dual currency system of pre-modern Europe to the establishment of a uniform, national and international, all-purpose currency in the form of the gold standard. The broader goal is to enquire, in historical and comparative perspective, how different monetary regimes affect the relation between internal and external balance, between monetary autonomy and monetary stability.