Descriptions of the gold standard have stressed two very different aspects of that monetary system. Modern observers, concerned with high and rising rates of inflation, have written enthusiastically and often nostalgically of the longer-term price stability that existed during the gold standard era. Many other economists during the past century and a half, however, have rendered a less kindly judgment, emphasizing instead the frequent and sometimes severe business contractions that characterized the period as well as the substantial shorter- and intermediate-term swings in the price level.