Defense of the franc Poincare; dominated French economic policy during the Depression. While most countries took their currencies off gold to permit a wider range of domestic policies to foster recovery, in France policy makers resolved to preserve the gold parity of the franc by balancing the budget and lowering domestic prices. Novelty and experimentation were rejected in the conviction that a durable recovery was possible only through a return to strict neoclassical orthodoxy. Managing the franc Poincare examines French monetary management from 1928 to 1936 in order to explain this...

Today, most scholars agree that mismanaged monetary policy contributed to the length and severity of the Great Depression. There is little agreement, however, about the causes of the Federal Reserve's mistakes. Some argue that leadership and other organizational changes prior to the depression caused a distinct change in policy strategy that lessened the Fed's responsiveness to economic conditions, while others contend that there was no change in the Fed's behavior, and that errors during the depression are traceable to previous policies. This book examines the policy strategy developed by...

This history focuses on the credit generating function of American banks. It demonstrates that banks aggressively promoted economic development rather than passively following its course. Using previously unexploited data, Professor Bodenhorn shows that banks helped to advance the development of industrialization. Additionally, he shows that banks formed long-distance relationships that promoted geographic capital mobility, thereby assuring that short-term capital was directed in socially desirable directions. He then traces those institutional and legal developments that allowed for this...

This book is a collection of articles by eminent economic historians from five European colonial powers and from six New World countries. The articles focus on the legacy of the Old World fiscal institutions (taxes and expenditures) and monetary institutions (currency and banking) for the New World from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Did the success or failure of the New World's institutions in the independent countries reflect the foundations and the flaws of the former colonial masters or adaptation to the new environment?

This book explores the past and future of central bank cooperation. In today s global economy, the cooperation between central banks is a key element in maintaining or restoring monetary and financial stability, thereby ensuring a smooth functioning of the international financial system. Or is it? In this book, economists, historians, and political scientists look back at the experience of central bank cooperation during the past century at its goals, nature, and processes and at its successes and failures and draw lessons for the future. Particular attention is devoted to the role played by...

Central banks in Great Britain and the United States arose early in the financial revolution. The Bank of England was created in 1694 while the first Banks of the United States appeared in 1791-1811 and 1816-36, and were followed by the Idependent Treasury, 1846-1914. These institutions, together with the Suffolk Bank and the New York Clearing House, exercised important central banking function before the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Significant monetary changes in the lives of these British and American institutions are examined within a framework that deals with the...

This book is a detailed historical description of the evolution of corporate governance and stock markets in Brazil in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The analysis details the practices of corporate governance, in particular the rights that shareholders have to restrict the actions of managers, and how that shaped different approaches to corporate finance over time. The book argues that companies are not necessarily constrained by the institutional framework in which they operate. In the case of Brazil, even if the protections for investors included in national laws were...

This book examines the insights that Keynesian macroeconomics offers into the economic history of the prewar British economy. It adopts a modern economic approach to issues such as unemployment, the price level and exchange rates in the period 1870-1939, making use of the latest advances in time series analysis and macroeconomics. In addition to being of interest to economic historians, it is relevant to economists concerned with current policy issues, since it shows how far correct policy choices depend on particular historical circumstances. This book examines the insights that Keynesian...

This book explores the past and future of central bank cooperation. In today s global economy, the cooperation between central banks is a key element in maintaining or restoring monetary and financial stability, thereby ensuring a smooth functioning of the international financial system. Or is it? In this book, economists, historians, and political scientists look back at the experience of central bank cooperation during the past century at its goals, nature, and processes and at its successes and failures and draw lessons for the future. Particular attention is devoted to the role played by...

Based on a wide array of data collected by the author, this book uses clear theoretically motivated economic analysis to explain the structure, performance, and influence of universal banks and securities markets on firms during industrialisation. The German universal banks played a significant but not overwhelming role in the ownership and control of corporate firms. Banks gained access to boards via a confluence of their underwriting and brokerage activities, the legal phenomena of bearer shares and deposited voting rights, and the flourishing securities markets of the turn of the twentieth...