Product details

Product details
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Case
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Reference no. SCG-567
Subject category: Entrepreneurship
Published by: USC-Marshall/Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Originally published in: 2020
Version: January 20, 2020
Length: 12 pages
Data source: Published sources

Abstract

Recent attempts by several big tech companies to create their own currencies, such as Facebook's Libra, have drawn attention to monetary innovations. The case offers important insights for this debate by engaging with the wave of monetary innovation and entrepreneurship triggered by the unemployment and economic distress of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Through the vantage point of one of the most successful community currencies of the time - the currency of Worgl in Austria - the students learn about the socio-economic challenges these currencies aimed to address, the distinct monetary designs these currencies adopted, and the kind of support they attempted to mobilize. The students explore the obstacles that monetary innovator and entrepreneur Mayor Unterguggenberger experienced. They develop a plan for a monetary design that will boost the local economy by iterating and evaluating several possible solutions.

Teaching and learning

This item is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Time period

The events covered by this case took place in 1932.

Geographical setting

Region:
Europe
Country:
Austria

Featured protagonist

  • Michael Unterguggenberger (male), Mayor

About

Abstract

Recent attempts by several big tech companies to create their own currencies, such as Facebook's Libra, have drawn attention to monetary innovations. The case offers important insights for this debate by engaging with the wave of monetary innovation and entrepreneurship triggered by the unemployment and economic distress of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Through the vantage point of one of the most successful community currencies of the time - the currency of Worgl in Austria - the students learn about the socio-economic challenges these currencies aimed to address, the distinct monetary designs these currencies adopted, and the kind of support they attempted to mobilize. The students explore the obstacles that monetary innovator and entrepreneur Mayor Unterguggenberger experienced. They develop a plan for a monetary design that will boost the local economy by iterating and evaluating several possible solutions.

Teaching and learning

This item is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Settings

Time period

The events covered by this case took place in 1932.

Geographical setting

Region:
Europe
Country:
Austria

Featured protagonist

  • Michael Unterguggenberger (male), Mayor

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