Review article
The Recent Discovery of Ivo Belin’s Study on the Consolidation of the Banking System of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1933
Vladimir Stipetić
Abstract
Ivo Belin (born in Trpanj in 1891) studied commerce in Trieste and economics in Köln and Zürich, receiving his Ph.D. in Frankfurt am Main with a dissertation entitled The Problems of Shipping and Naval Policy in Austria- Hungary. Upon his return to Zagreb, he worked as a finance clerk and later was secretary of the Zagreb Stock Exchange. In the period 1925-1936 he was docent at the College of Economics and Commerce in Zagreb, and between 1936 and 1941 he was vice-governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. With the outbreak of World War II Belin moved to Zagreb, where he was arrested and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. Thanks to a petition signed by all the local residents of Trpanj, Belin was pardoned by the Presidency of the National Assembly of the FNRY on 25 April 1946. From 1951 to 1963 he worked as an editor of the Yugoslav Institute of Lexicography. He died in 1975. A study on the consolidation of the Yugoslav banking system, dated 1933, has recently been discovered in his manuscript legacy. The work of this unjustly neglected economist of Trpanj is presented in its original form, apart from a few minor changes in punctuation and style. It brings to light the great banking crisis of the 1930s, the aftermath of which included the drastically deteriorated position of the farmers. Due to the overall drop in prices on the world market, the farmers, who at the time numbered almost four-fifths of the population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, were able to attain only 44 percent of the 1928 price for the fruit and vegetable products and 53 percent for meat. According to a survey carried out by the Agrarian Bank in 1932, their debt reached an incredible 7 billion dinars. Being unable to realize their investments, the banks found themselves in a most difficult position with the depositors, who were soon to make a run on the banks. Belin submits a number of measures in order to solve the banking crisis, which parallel those of J. M. Keynes in terms of strategy, but were adapted to the specific Yugoslav circumstances of the time.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
11759
URI
Publication date:
19.6.2001.
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