An alternative and more appealing explanation for interwar liquidity problems
emphasizes mismanagement of gold reserves rather than their overall insufficiency.
It blames France and the United States for absorbing disproportionate shares of
global gold supplies and for imposing deflation on the rest of the world. Between
1928 and 1932, French gold reserves rose from $1.25 billion to $3.26 billion of
constant gold content, or from 13 to 28 percent of the world total. Meanwhile, the
United States, which had released gold between 1924 and 1928, facilitating the
reestablishment of convertibility in other countries, reversed its position and imported
$1.49 billion of gold between 1928 and 1930. By the end of 1932 the United
States and France together possessed nearly 63 percent of the world’s central
monetary gold….