This Occasional Paper analyses how significant expansions in central banks' mandates, roles and instruments can result in challenges to the independence of monetary policy. The paper reviews, in particular, some of the key challenges to central bank independence brought about by the global...

Spain has experienced many financial crises through its history. These financial crises have varied origins. However, they do have common threads. The current recession and subsequent debt crisis follow the same pattern. The fiscal and monetary policies of the Spanish government have played a...

The economic history of the United States is riddled with financial crises and banking panics. During the nineteenth-century, eight major such episodes occurred. In the period following World War II, some believed that these crises would no longer happen, and that the U.S. had reached a time of...

The examination of U.S. crises reveals that the current financial crisis follows past patterns. An investment bubble creates excess demand for new financing instruments. During the railroad bubbles of the nineteenth century loans were issued at a pace higher than many companies could pay back....

What can history can tell us about the relationship between the banking system, financial crises, the global economy, and economic performance? Evidence shows that in the advanced economies we live in a world that is more financialized than ever before as measured by importance of credit in the...

This Occasional Paper analyses how significant expansions in central banks’ mandates, roles and instruments can result in challenges to the independence of monetary policy. The paper reviews, in particular, some of the key challenges to central bank independence brought about by the global...

We hypothesize that financial disintermediation during and after the Great Depression arose from the slow liquidation of failed-bank deposits in the years following financial crises. We construct a data series containing the stock of failed national bank deposits for the period 1921-1940. Our...

We hypothesize that financial disintermediation during and after the Great Depression arose from the slow liquidation of failed-bank deposits in the years following financial crises. We construct a data series containing the stock of failed national bank deposits for the period 1921-1940. Our...

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 divided Mississippi between the 6th (Atlanta) and 8th (St. Louis) Federal Reserve Districts. Before and during the Great Depression, these districts' policies differed. The Atlanta Fed championed monetary activism and the extension of credit to troubled banks. The...

Michael D. Bordo has helped to define the modern field of monetary history, drawing from it important policy lessons for current practitioners. For his seventieth year, we survey his contributions to our understanding of the Great Depression, money and the economy in historical perspective,...