Abstract
Despite the fact that more than a century has passed after the adoption of the gold standard in the main developed powers and the implementation of a strict monetary regime in Argentina, those two systems seem to rely on the same process. It aims at pegging a national currency by making its supply dependent on the actual amount of a specific benchmark also called as reserve currency. In other words, both processes maintain absolute convertibility between a national currency and the one against which they are stabilized at a fixed exchange rate. In the case of gold standard, the reserve currency was obviously gold whereas Argentina chose to peg its pesos to dollar. Moreover, both the Argentinean currency board and the gold standard in the XIXe ended up in a major crisis. Should we conclude, as many people do, that the gold standard is only a specific case in the currency board mechanism? Is the Argentinean currency board only a resurgence of gold standard in the XXe century?
