Yen
The yen is the money of account for Japan, comparable
to the dollar for the United States. By the 1990s the Japanese yen had become a
major international currency, sharing the stage with the U.S. dollar, the German
mark, and the ECU as determinants of international monetary values.
The Shinka Jorei (New Currency Regulations) of 1871 established the yen as
the monetary unit in Japan. The Japanese derived the word yen from the
Chinese word yuan, which meant “round thing,” a reference to the U.S. and
Mexican dollars that dominated East Asian trade at the time. The act set the yen
equal to 0.05 ounces of gold, making the official Japanese price of an ounce of
gold equal to 20 yen. At the time the official United States price of an ounce
of gold was $20.67. The yen was intended to be equivalent to the Mexican dollar,
the standard unit in Asian trade at the time. The yen began life as a
decimalized currency; one-one-hundredth of a yen was called a sen, and
one-tenth of a sen was called a rin.