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Zusatztext "What Grossman has done, in drawing our attention to the way in which past banking crises have been dealt with, is a significant contribution to the literature on the problems and difficulties involved in dealing with banks." ---Jonathan Warner, European Legacy Informationen zum Autor Richard S. Grossman is professor of economics at Wesleyan University and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. Klappentext "This excellent and well-organized book will be the standard reference on commercial banking history for years to come."--Michael Bordo! Rutgers University"Until now! banking history has stubbornly clung to national boundaries! comparative inquiries being rare. In this book! the author has done an excellent job of synthesizing the large and varied literature! producing a readable and accessible book."--Joost Jonker! Utrecht University Zusammenfassung 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. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Illustrations xiii List of Tables xv Preface xvii CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1 The Challenge of Intermediation 1 Banking and Economic Growth 5 Securities Markets! Banks! and Other Intermediators 10 The Scope of This Book 13 The Argument 16 CHAPTER Outline 27 CHAPTER 2: The Origins of Banking 28 Early Banking Functions 30 Credit Creation 32 Medieval Beginnings! Modern Prerequisites 35 Government Debt and the Beginnings of Government Banks 38 Government Banks 41 Private Banks 45 Commercial Banks 48 CHAPTER 3: Banking Crises 53 Financial Crises and Banking Crises 54 The Consequences of Banking Crises 59 The Causes of Banking Crises: Hypotheses 61 Evidence from before 1870 64 Evidence from 1870 to World War I 66 Evidence from the Interwar Period 74 A Durable Pattern 81 CHAPTER 4: Rescuing the Banking System: Bailouts! Lenders of Last Resort! and More Extreme Measures 83 Bailouts 86 Lenders of Last Resort 98 More Extreme Measures 104 Making the Cure Less Costly than the Disease 107 CHAPTER 5: Merger Movements 110 Consequences of Mergers 111 The Urge to Merge 112 Evidence 115 Matching Evidence with Explanations 120 CHAPTER 6: Regulation 128 Motives for Regulation 129 Entry Regulation 134 The Emergence of Charters 134 Banking Codes versus Corporation Law 141 Capital Requirements 145 The Role of Capital 145 Market...
