State and Financial Systems in Europe and the USA

Historical Perspectives on Regulation and Supervision in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Jaime Reis, Stefano Battilossi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754665946
• eBook ISBN: 9781317050520
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

During the twentieth century the financial sector became possibly the most regulated area of the economy in many advanced and developing countries. The interwar years represented the defining moment for the escalation of governments' intervention, turning the State into the core of financial systems in its capacity of regulator, supervisor or owner. The essays in this collection shed light on different aspects of the experience of financial regulation, ownership and deregulation in Europe and the USA from a secular historical perspective. The volume's chapters explore how the political economy of finance changed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how such changes were related to shifting attitudes towards globalization. They also investigate how regulation responded to governance problems of financial intermediaries and markets, and how different legal frameworks and institutional architectures influenced such response. The collection engages with a set of issues as diverse as they are interrelated across countries and over time: the regulatory attitude of British authorities toward the banking system and the stock exchange market in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the comparative evolution of bankruptcy laws and procedures; the link between state, regulation and governance in the evolution of the US and French financial systems; the emergence of banking regulation and supervision by central banks; the regulation and supervision of international financial markets since the 1950s; and the connection between deregulation and banking crises at the end of the past century. Taken as a whole, the chapters offer an intriguing insight into the differing ways western countries approached and responded to the challenges of the international financial system, and the legacy of this on the modern world. In so doing the volume holds up to historical scrutiny the debate as to whether overt state regulation of financial markets always has a negative affect on economic growth, or whether it can be an essential tool for developing nations in their efforts to expand their economies.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Making of Financial Regulation and Deregulation: A Long View
• 1 ‘Conservative abroad, liberal at home’: British Banking Regulation during the Nineteenth Century
• 2 Lobbying, Institutional Inertia, and the Efficiency Issue in State Regulation: Evidence from the Evolution of Bankruptcy Laws and Procedures in Italy, England, and the US (c.1870–1939)
• 3 Regulation and Governance: A Secular Perspective on the Development of the American Financial System
• 4 The London Stock Exchange and the British Government in the Twentieth Century
• 5 The State in the French Financial System during the Twentieth Century: A Specific Case?
• 6 The Emergence of Central Banks and Banking Supervision in Comparative Perspective
• 7 Regulation and Supervision: The Rise of Central Banks’ Research Departments
• 8 The Regulation of International Financial Markets from the 1950s to the 1990s
• 9 The Missing Link: International Banking Supervision in the Archives of the BIS
• 10 Banking Crises in the North: A Comparative Analysis of Finland and Sweden
• Bibliography
• Index