This book discusses the role of central banks and draws lessons from examining their evolution over the past two centuries.

This book reflects on the innovations that central banks have introduced since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers to improve their modes of intervention, regulation and resolution of financial markets and financial institutions. Authors from both academia and policy circles explore these innovations through four approaches: ‘Bank Capital Regulation’ examines the Basel III agreement; ‘Bank Resolution’ focuses on effective regimes for regulating and resolving ailing banks; ‘Central Banking with Collateral-Based Finance’ develops thought on the challenges that market-based finance pose for the conduct of central banking; and ‘Where Next for Central Banking’ examines the trajectory of central banking and its new, central role in sustaining capitalism.

This volume contains two major papers prepared for the Bank of England's Tercentenary Symposium in June 1994. The first, by Forrest Capie, Charles Goodhart and Norbert Schnadt, provides an authoritative account of the evolution of central banking. It traces the development of both the monetary and financial stability concerns of central banks, and includes individual sections on the evolution and constitutional positions of 31 central banks from around the world. The second paper, by Stanley Fischer, explores the major policy dilemmas now facing central bankers: the extent to which there is a short-term trade-off between inflation and growth; the choice of inflation targets; and the choice of operating procedures. Important contributions by leading central bankers from around the world, and the related Per Jacobsen lecture by Alexander Lamfalussy, are also included in the volume.

A central bank needs authority and a sphere of independent action. But a central bank cannot become an unelected czar with sweeping, unaccountable discretionary power. How can we balance the central bank's authority and independence with needed accountability and constraints? Drawn from a 2015 Hoover Institution conference, this book features distinguished scholars and policy makers' discussing this and other key questions about the Fed. Going beyond the widely talked about decision of whether to raise interest rates, they focus on a deeper set of questions, including, among others, How should the Fed make decisions? How should the Fed govern its internal decision-making processes? What is the trade-off between greater Fed power and less Fed independence? And how should Congress, from which the Fed ultimately receives its authority, oversee the Fed? The contributors discuss whether central banks can both follow rule-based policy in normal times but then implement a discretionary do-what-it-takes approach to stopping financial crises. They evaluate legislation, recently proposed in the US House and Senate, that would require the Fed to describe its monetary policy rule and, if and when it changed or deviated from its rule, explain the reasons. And they discuss to best ways to structure a committee—like the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rates—to make good decisions, as well as offer historical reflections on the governance of the Fed and much more.

Globalisation and the governance of the international financial system have arrived at the crossroads, where either a coherent level playing field for the cross-border activities of banks and multinational enterprises is settled upon, or the risk of another crisis will build up again. This book will explore the underlying problems alongside inconsistent economic and financial trends as a guide for researchers, advanced students and professionals to think about the interconnectedness of the factors involved. Readers will gain insights drawn from recent developments in economic theory and empirical research—a toolkit to help them in their future careers in economics and finance—illustrated with an analysis of the 2008 crisis and its aftermath.

ÔHasan CšmertÕs timely book reaches us during the prolonged conditions of the global great recession. By providing a thorough and detailed econometric analysis of the institutional and historical developments of the hegemonic leader of capitalism, Cšmert reveals that the simplistic monetary policy tools of the central banks of the so-called Òmodern great moderationÓ era are over, and we are now at cross-roads of a paradigmatic shift. CšmertÕs book suggests itself as one of the first leading examples of this shift.Õ Ð Erini Yeldan, Yasar University, Turkey ÔThis provocative book shows that the Federal Reserve has, in the last four decades, gradually lost influence over credit and financial markets. This argument, supported by institutional analysis and econometric tests, has two explosive implications: first, Federal Reserve policy did not cause the subprime crisis; second, central banks no longer have instruments for intervening in economies whose growth they are now expected to restore. Anyone concerned with the future of global capitalism should consider ComertÕs work as a matter of urgency.Õ Ð Gary Dymski, Leeds University Business School, UK and University of California, Riverside, US ÔPrior to the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, mainstream economists celebrated a ÒNew ConsensusÓ on monetary policy in which independent central banks were assumed able to bring about a ÒGreat ModerationÓ of low inflation and high economic growth by manipulating short-term interest rates. In this important and interesting book, Hasan Cšmert demonstrates convincingly, through institutional analysis and econometrics, that central banks lost control of the price and quantity of credit starting two decades before this celebration. He shows that central banks themselves, through their support of financial market deregulation and globalization, helped bring about both monetary policy impotence and the global crisis. ItÕs a must-read.Õ Ð James Crotty, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, US In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, there has been increasing debate over the appropriate role of central banks in mitigating economic disaster. This timely volume combines detailed historical and econometric analyses to explore the profound changes that occurred within the US financial system from the 1980s to the present, and shows how these changes have affected the US economy. Hasan Cšmert demonstrates how dramatic shifts in the financial system undermined the ability of the US Federal Reserve to control the price and quantity of credit. He identifies several key factors that facilitated this loss of control, including deregulation, rapid financial innovations, increased financial integration and a number of policy decisions implemented within the Federal Reserve itself. Through a combination of several methods, including historical and institutional analyses, descriptive statistics, simulation and econometric techniques, the author provides a well-rounded and vitally important picture of the US financial system and offers insightful policy recommendations for the future. Students, professors and policymakers with an interest in economics, finance, banking and monetary policy will no doubt find this book a fascinating and invaluable resource.

Government bailouts; negative interest rates and markets that do not behave as economic models tell us they should; new populist and nationalist movements that target central banks and central bankers as a source of popular malaise; new regional organizations and geopolitical alignments laying claim to authority over the global economy; households, consumers, and workers facing increasingly intolerable levels of inequality: These dramatic conditions seem to cry out for new ways of understanding the purposes, roles, and challenges of central banks and financial governance more generally. Financial Citizenship reveals that the conflicts about who gets to decide how central banks do all these things, and about whether central banks are acting in everyone’s interest when they do them, are in large part the product of a culture clash between experts and the various global publics that have a stake in what central banks do. Experts—central bankers, regulators, market insiders, and their academic supporters—are a special community, a cultural group apart from many of the communities that make up the public at large. When the gulf between the culture of those who govern and the cultures of the governed becomes unmanageable, the result is a legitimacy crisis. This book is a call to action for all of us—experts and publics alike—to address this legitimacy crisis head on, for our economies and our democracies.

The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union (OECS/ECCU) is one of four currency unions in the world. As in other parts of the world in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis, the region is at a crossroads, facing the major challenges of creating jobs, making growth more inclusive, reforming the banking system, and managing volatility, while grappling with high public debt and persistent low economic growth. Policymakers have the critical task of implementing strong reforms to strengthen the monetary union while also laying the foundation for accelerating growth. This Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the key issues in the OECS/ECCU, including its organization and economic and financial sector linkages, and provides policy recommendations to foster economic growth.