Central Banking

Abstract

The study of central banking is an important part of cliometrics today. However, economists and bankers have been studying central banking since well before the cliometric revolution began. Early eighteenth century British economists were studying the structure of the Bank of England in detail, and economists were closely involved in the debates leading up to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, cliometricians began studying central banking and related issues in great detail. The study of bank panics of the National Banking Era and Great Depression in the United States has revealed that lender of last resort activities have been undertaken rather timidly, ranging from the incomplete responses of clearinghouses to the failure of the Federal Reserve during the Depression. Cliometricians have also added several large and rich sources of evidence to the study of central banking.