Richard Kerschagl’s methodological article outlines the statistical requirements of central banking under inflation and currency instability. Published in German in 1923, it draws on Austrian experience to connect monetary accounting, exchange-market observation, and general economic intelligence. Its guiding concern is to make figures economically interpretable through distinctions of composition, valuation, timing, and comparability.
Die Statistik einer Notenbank läßt sich hinsichtlich ihres Aufgabenkreises vor allem in drei große Gruppen scheiden: in die innere Notenbankstatistik, in die sogenannte exodromische Statistik und in die allgemeine Finanz- und Wirtschaftsstatistik 1).
English translation: The statistics of a bank of issue may, with respect to their range of tasks, be divided above all into three large groups: internal bank-of-issue statistics, so-called exodromic statistics, and general financial and economic statistics 1).
Internal statistics cover circulation, backing, and cashless payments. Absolute note totals need supplementation by base-period indices and successive rates of increase. Analysis must also extend beyond physical notes to giro balances at the issuing bank, given their convertibility and connection with credit creation. Consistent observation dates matter because recurrent fluctuations around month-end can distort comparisons.
Reserve measurement reveals the difference between accounting conventions and economic relationships. When a currency departs from gold parity, statutory valuation alone cannot adequately describe the relationship between metallic reserves and circulating notes.
Man unterscheidet daher — insbesondere beim Vergleich mit dem Umlauf — eine metallische Deckungsstatistik zum Goldparitätswert und eine solche zum Goldkurswert der Note gerechnet.
English translation: One therefore distinguishes — particularly in comparison with the circulation — a statistic of metallic cover reckoned at the gold parity value of the note and one reckoned at its gold market value.
These valuations answer different questions rather than yielding interchangeable totals. The same demand for differentiation governs discount and collateral-loan statistics: private commercial claims must be distinguished from state obligations. Direct government advances, discounted state paper, and loans against government securities disclose channels of monetary financing that isolated balance-sheet categories can obscure.
Die Bedeutung des Kriegsanleihelombards als Grundlage eines Großteiles der inflatorischen Geldschöpfung in fast allen Staaten ist für den Beobachter der Kriegs- und Nachkriegsinflation von ungemein großer Bedeutung.
English translation: The significance of lombard lending on war loans as the basis of a large part of the inflationary creation of money in almost all states is of uncommonly great importance for the observer of wartime and postwar inflation.
War-loan collateral thus connects statistical classification with an explanation of wartime and postwar inflation. It also introduces a prospective question: whether changed commercial practices will permit money creation grounded in commodity bills once fiscal inflation ends.
Cashless settlement poses a further measurement problem. Payment intensity cannot be observed directly; Kerschagl proposes inferences from clearing turnover, bank deposits, and the distinction between relatively stable giro balances and actively moving funds. Interest-rate statistics connect these internal processes with international conditions. Higher rates may attract foreign funds and assist stabilization, but cannot independently remedy depreciation sustained by inflation and economic disorder.
The discussion of “exodromic” statistics examines currencies’ external relations. Reciprocal quotations across financial centres can reveal arbitrage opportunities, but volatile markets resist reduction to representative averages. A monthly arithmetic mean may correspond to no actual quotation, while frequency groupings may require intervals so broad that comparison becomes misleading. Maxima and minima, or observations at regular dates, preserve information suppressed by an average without providing a universally sufficient solution.
Kerschagl also considers market structure. Differences between physical-note and transfer quotations may indicate preferences for hoarding or concealment. Bid–offer spreads, turnover values, and transaction counts could clarify demand. Weighting exchange-rate measures by currencies’ actual market importance remains a problem requiring cooperation between statistical theory and practice.
Purchasing-power comparisons demand similar restraint. Individual commodities, price indices, and prewar parity benchmarks each illuminate monetary relations but introduce different limitations. Identical goods need not have equal significance in different economies, and cost-of-living indices embody distinct consumption patterns. The productive emphasis is on comparative movements: prices against prices, prices against exchange rates, and both against circulation. Divergence between domestic purchasing power and external currency value can support exports while concealing inefficient production.
The concluding agenda encompasses trade and payments balances, taxes, incomes, wages, legislation, and foreign currency policy. Literature services and systematic indexing complete an institutional conception of statistics as central-bank intelligence. Throughout, the usefulness of monetary data depends on identifying the economic processes behind the figures while recognizing the limits of their measurement.
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