Maylis Avaro - Research

PUBLICATIONS

Zombie International Currency: The pound sterling, 1945-1971

Accepted - Journal of Economic History, forthcoming, Sept.2024 . Working paper

Awarded the 2021 EHS prize for Best New Researcher Paper.

Abstract: This paper examines the international role of sterling during the Bretton Woods era and challenges the view of a competition between dollar and sterling after WWII. I construct a new dataset on the composition of foreign exchange reserves of European and sterling area monetary authorities. The postwar reserve role of sterling was limited to the sterling area and was artificial as this area was built as a captive market. I document the exchange controls, commercial threats and economic sanctions employed by the British authorities on sterling area countries to constrain them to keep their foreign exchange reserves in sterling.

Media coverage: The Long Run,

Presentations: LEAP seminar, ASSA 2022, 2021 Economic History Workshop - Princeton, 2021 Oxford graduate Economic History seminar, 2021 seminar of financial and business history, Paris School of Economics, 2021 EHS conference, 2020, Research Seminar of the Queen's University Centre for Economic History, Belfast, 2020 LSE Graduate Economic History Seminar - London, EHS NRS Online. 2019 Research seminar – Wirtschaftsuniversität, Wien, 2019 CEB Brown bag seminar – ULB.

Rueff vs de Lattre: a French money doctors’ duel for influence over de Gaulle

Published in A. Alvarez, V. Bignon, M. Shizume and A. Ögren (eds). Money Doctors Around the Globe: A historical Perspective, Springer 2024.

Abstract: In the early sixties, Jacques Rueff campaigned against the Bretton Woods system, urging the termination of the U.S. dollar’s international reserve role. He encouraged French president Charles de Gaulle to publicly advocate the abandonment of the gold exchange standard. However, among de Gaulle’s inner circle, André de Lattre tried to persuade the President to cooperate with the U.S. in safeguarding the stability of the international monetary system. This chapter presents the trajectories of these two money doctors and their endeavor to sway de Gaulle’s perspective.

Essays in monetary history

Dissertation summary published in European Review of Economic History (2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/head018

Banking union: a solution to the euro zone crisis?

Published in Revue de l'OFCE (2014): 193-241. doi.org/10.3917/reof.132.0193 Pre-doctoral publication, with Henri Sterdyniak.

WORKING PAPERS

At Your Service! Liquidity Provision and Risk Management in 19th Century France

Joint work with Vincent Bignon

Abstract: This paper uses a historical study to show a solution to the trade-off faced by central banks between providing liquidity to a broad group of financial intermediaries and the risk that this easy access may fuel moral hazard. In late 19th century the Bank of France operates a very wide discount window and uses a variety of risk management techniques to effectively subdue risk-taking behaviors and to protect its balance sheet from taking any loss. This allows agents to monetize a very diverse set of capital while limiting the risk of bail-out. We show that this effectively helps the central bank to stabilize the economy from the consequences of negative income shocks.

CEPR Discussion paper 13556

Media coverage: Vox column ; LSE Business Review

Presentations: 2022 Atlanta Fed Monetary and Financial history workshop, 2019 EHES conference, 2019 French Economic Association conference, 2019 PhD Day – University of Geneva, 2018 Historiales, 2018 CEPR Symposium, 2018 World Economic History Congress, 2017 Economic History Society annual conference.

The Spreading of Banks and the First Industrial Revolution in France, 1800–1870

Joint work with Vincent Bignon and Clemens Jobst.

Abstract: This paper studies the spread of banks during the first industrial revolution in France. We show that, starting in the 1820s, the banking sector expands quickly and, in the 1830s, locates significantly more in industrializing district, i.e. in districts with more steam engines and patents, than in less industrializing districts. This result is robust to the inclusion of geographical, institutional and other economic controls. This is consistent with the idea that banks seized the opportunity of financing the engines of growth of the French economy.

Presentations: Vienna's Wirtschafts und Sozialgeschichte conference, April 2021, and EBHS Salt Lake City, May 2022, AFSE Paris, June 2023, EHES Vienna 2023.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Banking and Monetary History:

"A Run or Crash: The Terra/Luna Crypto Breakdown" with Marc Flandreau.
"The Creation and Management of International Currencies", chapter for the New Handbook on the History of Central Banking, Routledge, forthcoming. Clemens Jobst and Stefano Ugolini (eds).
"A Gold Battle? De Gaulle and the Dollar Hegemony during the Bretton Woods era." Presented at IPSA work congress, July 2021, Money Doctor workshop, Feb. 2022, Financial History Network, March 2022, World Economic History Congress, Paris, July 2022, Penn Economic History Forum, March 2023, Séminaire Banque de France, June 2023, Goethe University - Frankfurt, June 2023.
"The Strong and the Weak: European currencies during the Snake", with Michael Bordo, Harold James and Alain Naef. Presented at EHES Groningen, June 2022, and WEHC Paris, July 2022.
"The Political Economy of French Banking Regulation from the Interwar Period to the End of World War II" with Kim Oosterlinck and Jean Lacroix.
"The Role of the Media in Bank Runs", with Kim Oosterlinck and Hugues Pirotte.

History of Economics:

"Uncovering the Hidden Value of Unpaid Work: A Global History of Marginalized Metrics". With Johanna Gautier Morin. Presented at Boundaries of Economics, Paris, June 2022, Women and Gender in International Economic History workshop, EUI, June 2023. Submitted.

REVIEW AND ESSAYS

"The historical rise of the Swiss franc as an international reserve currency", Current Affairs in Perspective, 7, (2021). (available here)

Review essay: “The international monetary system against the bitcoin.” Etudes Internationales, 48.3-4 (2017): 511-522. (available here)

Book reviews: Pierre Pénet, Juan Flores Zendejas (éds), Sovereign Debt Diplomacies: Rethinking Sovereign Debt from Colonial Empires to Hegemony, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, 384 pages, Revue d’Histoire Suisse, (2023), Vol. 73, 2023, Nr. 3. (available here)

Olivier Feiertag et Margairaz Michel (dir.) Les banques centrales et l’État-nation Paris, Sciences Po les Presses, 2016, 698 p. Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, (2021), 76(1), 211-213 (available here)

PUBLICATION IN FRENCH

Oikos nomos : Visibilité, mesures et valeurs du mode de production domestique en littérature contemporaine.

Published in Fabula-LhT, issue ‘Inventer l’économie’, (2022) doi.org/10.58282/lht.3043 Avec Mathilde Roussigné.

Présentation: séminaire Fictions & Économie de PHARE (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).