Haifan Lliev
| Haifan Lliev | |
| Demographics | |
|---|---|
| User(s) | Free State of Haifa |
The Haifan Lliev, also spelled Liev,[1] was the currency of the Free State of Haifa (1602 AN to 1620 AN). It was Haifa's own denomination of the credit of the Small Commonwealth Unified Economy, the shared banking system on which the republic's economy was built and which Haifa knew as the Exchange; the same credit was issued as the obol in Hamland and, later, the polis in the Pallisican sphere.[2]
Banking and the Exchange
Haifa was a banking economy, described by its own founders as resting on finance in the manner of Incontinentia, and it issued no money outside the Exchange. The Exchange's base unit was the credit; each member state issued that credit under a name of its own, the Lliev in Haifa and the obol in Hamland, each reckoned against the base credit rather than struck as its own coin.
The Haifan economy ran on the Exchange from its accession. Haifan companies were listed on the Ham50, the Hammish stock market, and the republic operated the economic model authored by Erlo Sinders. Sinders held the finance ministry of Hamland and the presidency of the regional government that bought up Haifan firms, and he governed the Wallis Islands, the republic's wealthiest territory. The largest Haifan concern, the Haifa Diamond Company, opened at 2.40 obols a share, and that same regional government bought 30 percent of it, some 98 obols' worth, to become its principal shareholder. This was the dependence Benjamin Meir named on resigning the premiership in 1616 AN, when he said that Haifa had become, to some, a component of Hamland.[2]
Administration
The Lliev had no monetary authority of its own. Haifa minted no coin and kept no central bank; the Exchange's credit was administered through the finance ministry of Hamland, the office Erlo Sinders held, rather than through any Haifan body.[2] Nor did the money hold a fixed worth: the credit rose and fell with the level of investment across the Exchange, so the value of a Lliev moved with the markets traded on the Ham50 and held to no set rate.
Dissolution
When the republic was dissolved in 1620 AN, Haifa proper passed to the Commonwealth of Hamland as an autonomous territory, and the Commonwealth assigned it the whole of its currency reserve, 16,762.85 obols, for immediate investment. No further Haifan denomination was issued, and the territory kept the money of the Exchange under Hammish administration.[3]
References
- ^ The Free State's own records give the double-l Lliev; the single-l Liev appears in outside usage.
- ^ a b c Recorded in the economic returns of the Free State of Haifa and in its membership of the SCUE.
- ^ Agreement of Dissolution of the Free State of Haifa (1620 AN).
