The Evolution Of General Banking

Also attributed to John H. Eastburn.

The financial systems of developed countries are evolving at a faster rate than ever before in the direction of market solutions to all problems, while many securities markets have become global in scope. The thirteen essays in this volume consist of papers read by leading European academics in the fields of banking and finance. The first four chapters deal with the evolution in general terms, while the remaining chapters are concerned with the impact of the changes on different parts of the financial system.

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

An excerpt from a review in The Economic Review, Volume 11: THE late Professor Dunbar was engaged for some time before his death, in January of last year, in the preparation of a second edition of his valuable manual on banking. It was, unfortunately, left unfinished. The work, however, has been very satisfactorily carried out by Mr. Sprague. The book has been considerably enlarged, and its statistical information has been brought thoroughly up to date. Professor Dunbar's little manual is undoubtedly the best source to which any student of the subject can repair, who is not prepared to wade through the larger and more elaborate books on the subject; and, indeed, even those who have studied the works of Mr. McLeod and Mr. Gilbart will find their knowledge both supplemented and corrected on many important points by the study of this book of Mr. Dunbar. The first seven chapters are devoted to the discussion and elucidation of the general principles of the subject, the last four to a sketch of the constitution and history of five of the great banks or banking systems of the world-the Bank of Amsterdam, the Bank of France, the National Banks of the United States, the Bank of England, and the Reichsbank of Germany. In dealing with the general principles of the subject, Professor Dunbar does not make the mistake made by so many financial writers of assuming on the part of his readers a comprehension of matters which certainly no one can comprehend unexplained, but which bankers and accountants understand after a fashion, or, at any rate, seem to understand from the sheer force of habit. Why, for instance, should the capital and the undivided profits of a bank be reckoned among its liabilities? In ordinary parlance they seem, on the contrary, to be absolutely synonymous with the resources which it possesses to meet every conceivable liability. Professor Dunbar explains that they are liabilities of an entirely different character from deposits and notes outstanding. Some further explanation, however, might, with advantage, have been given of the causes which have led to a classification that appears at first sight so puzzling. It arose, no doubt, out of the same exigencies which gave birth to the whole system of book-keeping by double entry. If a farmer, say, wishes to know not only what his total profits or losses for the year amount to, but also what they are separately from his sheep, his cattle, and his grain crops, his only, or at any rate his most convenient method of ascertaining this is to create fictitious personages under the names of "sheep," "cattle," and "grain crops," and to debit these personages with the capital laid out in their several departments, and to credit them with the returns from it. It is thus comprehensible enough how the capital and undivided profits of a joint stock bank come to be looked on as the sum of its liabilities to those who have combined their resources for its establishment; and, as regards a private bank into which one individual may be supposed to have put all his resources, he must, for the purposes of book-keeping, regard himself in a double light, as at once his own debtor and his own creditor. Banking is so wide and so varied a subject that it is, of course, impossible to do more than touch upon one or two of the matters dealt with in a book like the present. The explanation of the manner in which the clearing-house certificates were used in New York to allay panic in 1860 and 1884, and, with somewhat less success, in 1873, will be one of the most interesting features of the book to English readers, to whom, for the most part, these certificates have been something of a mystery. Ch. vii. deals with the matter in a lucid manner....

This book reflects on the innovations that central banks have introduced since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers to improve their modes of intervention, regulation and resolution of financial markets and financial institutions. Authors from both academia and policy circles explore these innovations through four approaches: ‘Bank Capital Regulation’ examines the Basel III agreement; ‘Bank Resolution’ focuses on effective regimes for regulating and resolving ailing banks; ‘Central Banking with Collateral-Based Finance’ develops thought on the challenges that market-based finance pose for the conduct of central banking; and ‘Where Next for Central Banking’ examines the trajectory of central banking and its new, central role in sustaining capitalism.

A sweeping look at the evolution of commercial banks over the past two centuries Commercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions. When they work well, we hardly notice; when they do not, we rail against them. What are the historical forces that have shaped the modern banking system? In Unsettled Account, Richard Grossman takes the first truly comparative look at the development of commercial banking systems over the past two centuries in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Grossman focuses on four major elements that have contributed to banking evolution: crises, bailouts, mergers, and regulations. He explores where banking crises come from and why certain banking systems are more resistant to crises than others, how governments and financial systems respond to crises, why merger movements suddenly take off, and what motivates governments to regulate banks. Grossman reveals that many of the same components underlying the history of banking evolution are at work today. The recent subprime mortgage crisis had its origins, like many earlier banking crises, in a boom-bust economic cycle. Grossman finds that important historical elements are also at play in modern bailouts, merger movements, and regulatory reforms. Unsettled Account is a fascinating and informative must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the modern commercial banking system came to be, where it is headed, and how its development will affect global economic growth.

Although central banking is today often presented as having emerged in the nineteenth or even twentieth century, it has a long and colourful history before 1800, from which important lessons for today's debates can be drawn. While the core of central banking is the issuance of money of the highest possible quality, central banks have also varied considerably in terms of what form of money they issued (deposits or banknotes), what asset mix they held (precious metals, financial claims to the government, loans to private debtors), who owned them (the public, or private shareholders), and who benefitted from their power to provide emergency loans. Central Banking Before 1800: A Rehabilitation reviews 25 central banks that operated before 1800 to provide new insights into the financial system in early modern times. Central Banking Before 1800 rehabilitates pre-1800 central banking, including the role of numerous other institutions, on the European continent. It argues that issuing central bank money is a natural monopoly, and therefore central banks were always based on public charters regulating them and giving them a unique role in a sovereign territorial entity. Many early central banks were not only based on a public charter but were also publicly owned and managed, and had well defined policy objectives. Central Banking Before 1800 reviews these objectives and the financial operations to show that many of today's controversies around central banking date back to the period 1400-1800.