INTERNATIONAL CURRENCIES FROM TETRADRACHM TO EURO - PART THREE: US DOLLAR AND EURO EMERGENCE

Summary: US dollar appeared in the role of the world money in the inter-war period, in the mid 1920s. The Great Depression had caused major distress for the U.S. economy and its banking system and undermined the role of US dollar as an international currency, but did not drive it out from the international circulation, as the dollar returned, in 1934, to its gold-bullion standard convertibility. After the Second World War, US dollar regained its predominant role as an international currency and remained in that position until 1971. The US dollar hegemony was disrupted by the German mark, the Japanese yen, and since 1999, by the advent of Euro. When dollar is compared with the other currencies which have been known in the monetary history as the most important international currencies - tetradrachm, denarius, solidus, and the pound sterling, it may be said that the dollar was the most unstable of all the other known international currencies.