The global financial crisis in 2008 brought central banking to the centre stage, prompting questions about the role of national central banks and - in Europe - of the multi-country European Central Bank. What can central banks do, and what are their limitations? How have they performed?...

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Peel’s economic-policy regime change in Britain during the early nineteenth century -- Chapter 3. The ideas and policies of the Banking School -- Chapter 4. The crises of 1825 and 1837 -- Chapter 5. The 1847 Crises -- Chapter 6. The 1857-58 crisis, etc.

This dissertation was written by Christopher Weber during his time as a research assistant at the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich. It was handed in at the department of Economics at the LMU Munich in July 2016. The goal of the thesis is to...