The Emergence Of Modern Central Banking From 1918 To The Present

The twentieth century has seen the rise of modern central banking. At its close, it is also witnessing the first steps in the decline of the role of some of the most famous of these institutions. In this volume, some of the world’s best known specialists examine the process whereby central banks emerged and asserted themselves within the economic and political spheres of their respective countries. Although the theory and the political economy that presided over their creation did not show great divergence across borders, a considerable institutional variety was nevertheless the result. Among the many factors responsible for this diversity, attention is drawn here not only to the idiosyncrasies of domestic financial systems and to the occurrence of political shocks with major monetary repercussions, such as wars, but also to the peculiarities of each economy and of the political and social climate reigning at the time when central banks were created or formalized. The twelve essays cover European, Asian and American experiences and many of them use a comparative approach.

Provides new analysis of the spread of central banking beyond Western Europe and North America in the 1920s and 1930s.

Central banks were not always as ubiquitous as they are today. Their functions were circumscribed, their mandates ambiguous, and their allegiances once divided. The inter-war period saw the establishment of twenty-eight new central banks – most in what are now called emerging markets and developing economies. The Emergence of the Modern Central Bank and Global Cooperation provides a new account of their experience, explaining how these new institutions were established and how doctrinal knowledge was transferred. Combining synthetic analysis with national case studies, this book shows how institutional design and monetary practice were shaped by international organizations and leading central banks, which attached conditions to stabilization loans and dispatched 'money doctors.' It highlights how many of these arrangements fell through when central bank independence and the gold standard collapsed.

This 2005 treatment compares the central banks of Britain and the United States.