The Portuguese Escudo Monetary Zone: Its Impact in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa

This monograph examines the failure of the Portuguese Escudo Monetary Zone and the birth of new monetary and financial systems in Portuguese-speaking African countries. Examining colonial and post-colonial times, Mata analyses the decision to build a Portuguese monetary area in the early 1960s and mid-1970s when the decolonisation process was peaking.
This book offers some important lessons regarding the functioning and dismantling of monetary areas, and on the importance of central-banks’ co-operation.

Maria Eugénia Mata is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics at Nova University Lisbon, Portugal. Her research interests include Economic, Business and Financial History, and the History of Economic Thought. Mata is an Ex-President of the Portuguese Economic and Social History Association.