During the years before 1914 the world’s still largely unused resources were brought increasingly within the framework of a single world economy. This process owed much to Britain’s ability to export capital on a scale which has never since been equalled. Yet periods of heavy investment overseas alternated with home investment booms that absorbed the greater part of Britain’s savings. The reasons for this fluctuation, and the mechanism which linked Britain’s economic development with the rest of the world, are still subject to debate. This volume illuminates the problems of the global economy today by examining different interpretations and research from history.

During the years before 1914 the world's still largely unused resources were brought increasingly within the framework of a single world economy. This process owed much to Britain's ability to export capital on a scale which has never since been equalled. Yet periods of heavy investment overseas alternated with home investment booms that absorbed the greater part of Britain's savings. The reasons for this fluctuation, and the mechanism which linked Britain's economic development with the rest of the world, are still subject to debate. This volume illuminates the problems of the global economy today by examining different interpretations and research from history.

During the years before 1914 the world’s still largely unused resources were brought increasingly within the framework of a single world economy. This process owed much to Britain’s ability to export capital on a scale which has never since been equalled. Yet periods of heavy investment overseas alternated with home investment booms that absorbed the greater part of Britain’s savings. The reasons for this fluctuation, and the mechanism which linked Britain’s economic development with the rest of the world, are still subject to debate. This volume illuminates the problems of the global economy today by examining different interpretations and research from history.

"This important, well edited.... collection of essays focuses primarily on the contentious relationship between finance and industry, revealing the jury to be still out on the thorny question of the City" culpability. David Kynaston, The Financial Times "An extremely useful and informative volume. Michael Collins, University of Leeds, UKCapitalism in a Mature Economy charts the development of the City as the undisputed financial centre of the world in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, reflecting Britain's dominant position in the world economy. The book focuses on four inter-related themes: the development and operations of English capital markets including the stock exchange and the clearing and merchant banks, the financing of British industry, the role of financiers and company promoters, and the financing of British overseas capital investment and trade.

This book is concerned with developments in three main areas of monetary history: domestic commercial banking; monetary policy; and the UK’s international financial position. For ease of analysis the 160 years under study are arranged into three clear chronological divisons. Part 1 covers the years 1826-1913, a period in which the UK emerged as the world’s leading economic power. It was in these years that an extensive and fully-operative domestic banking system was established. Part 2 covers 1914 to 1939 – the years which marked a break in the traditional monetary arrangements of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Part 3 covers 1939-1986 when the dominance of state influence within the domestic money markets was re-established by the Second World War and the acceptance by the authorities of the obligation to ‘manage’ the economy which meant that successive postwar governments took direct responsibility for the conduct of monetary and credit policy.

This study examines the impact of British capital flows on the evolution of capital markets in four countries - Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States - over the years 1870 to 1914. In substantive chapters on each country it offers parallel histories of the evolution of their financial infrastructures - commercial banks, non-bank intermediaries, primary security markets, formal secondary security markets, and the institutions that provide the international financial links connecting the frontier country with the British capital market. At one level, the work constitutes a quantitative history of the development of the capital markets of five countries in the late nineteenth century. At a second level, it provides the basis for a useable taxonomy for the study of institutional invention and innovation. At a third, it suggests some lessons from the past about modern policy issues.

Charting developments in one of the most turbulent periods of economic history, this far reaching volume covers the problems facing the major economies of Europe in the inter-war years. It also discusses global economic policies and the crises for the world's major currencies. Although it covers complex themes, the book is written in an accessible way even for the non-specialist.

Scholars have recently begun to pay renewed attention to the economics of empire, focusing in particular on the requirements of metropolitan Britain's economy and on the activities of imperial businesses. Within this broad field, financial questions, not least the subject of investment overseas or the 'export of capital', have long had a prominent place, and have been equally affected by the development of new appraoches. The consensus as to the volume and direction of Britain's overseas investments is being vigorously challenged. Technological advances have encouraged on a greatly enlarged scale the compilation and analysis of information about British investments and shareholdings abroad. The gradual easing of restrictions on business records has increased facilities for the study, especially, of imperial and colonial banking. Work on the financial policies of central governments is revealing much of interest to students of twentieth-century colonial rule and decolonization. This collection of essays brings together a selection of the latest research on these and other themes, and, for comparative purposes, includes examples of recent continental work.