.
One aspect of a money standard that is based on a commodity with
relatively fixed supply is long-run price stability. Since governments must
maintain a fixed value of their money relative to gold, the supply of
money is restricted by the supply of gold. Prices may still rise and fall
with swings in gold output and economic growth, but the tendency is to
return to a long-run stable level. Figure 2.1 illustrates graphically the rela-
tive stability of U.S. and U.K. prices over the gold standard period as
compared to later years. However, note also that prices fluctuated up and
down in the short run during the gold standard. Thus, frequent small
bursts of inflation and deflation occurred in the short run, but in the long
run the price level remained unaffected. Since currencies were convert-
ible into gold, national money supplies were constrained by the growth of
the stock of gold. As long as the gold stock grew at a steady rate, prices
would also follow a steady path. New discoveries of gold would generate
discontinuous jumps in the price level, but the period of the gold stan-
dard was marked by a fairly stable stock of gold.