The Bundesbank is one of the world's most powerful and successful central banks, outstanding for its independence in the conduct of monetary policy and for its success in the achievement of relative price stability virtually throughout the post-war era. This collection of essays by the President of the Bundesbank, by former and present Board members and by Heads of Department within the Bundesbank offer a rare inside insight into its operations. The individual contributions to this volume explain the historical, legal and institutional basis of German internal and external monetary policy and highlight the goals of the German central bank and its role in the economy as a whole. The role of the Deutschmark as one of the leading international transaction, reserve and investment currencies is discussed in detail. Students of monetary management and the banking community throughout the world will benefit greatly from a study of this unique volume.

The might of the D-Mark gives the Bundesbank greater influence than most elected governments over monetary policies across Europe. In bringing to life the central bank and the people who run it, Marsh reveals its history, and present-day, behind-the-scenes arguments over European monetary union.

This eye-opening book offers a disturbing new look at Japan's post-war economy and the key factors that shaped it. It gives special emphasis to the 1980s and 1990s when Japan's economy experienced vast swings in activity. According to the author, the most recent upheaval in the Japanese economy is the result of the policies of a central bank less concerned with stimulating the economy than with its own turf battles and its ideological agenda to change Japan's economic structure. The book combines new historical research with an in-depth behind-the-scenes account of the bureaucratic competition between Japan's most important institutions: the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan. Drawing on new economic data and first-hand eyewitness accounts, it reveals little known monetary policy tools at the core of Japan's business cycle, identifies the key figures behind Japan's economy, and discusses their agenda. The book also highlights the implications for the rest of the world, and raises important questions about the concentration of power within central banks.

The 2008 financial crisis led to more and more frequent political attacks on central banks. The recent spotlight on central bank independence is reminiscent of the fiery debates amongst Germany's political elites in 1949 on the same issue; debates that were sparked by the establishment of West Germany in that year. Simon Mee shows how, with the establishment of West Germany's central bank - today's Deutsche Bundesbank - the country's monetary history became a political football, as central bankers, politicians, industrialists and trade unionists all vied for influence over the legal provisions that set out the remit of the future monetary authority. The author reveals how a specific version of inter-war history, one that stresses the lessons learned from Germany's periods of inflation, was weaponised and attached to a political, contemporary argument for an independent central bank. The book challenges assumptions around the evolution of central bank independence with continued relevance today.

"How were German's gold reserves created, and what role has gold played as a means of payment over time? ... The Deutsche Bundesbank's project to bring substantial gold holdings to Frankfurt am Main from storage locations in New York and Paris has generated a great deal of public interest over the past few years. This book is the first of its kind to provide a detailed account of how the gold in the Bundesbank's vaults came into being and how it has been used and stored over time. Splendid images of selected gold bars provide a beautiful backdrop to in-depth informtion on the properties of gold and how it is mined and processed"--Back of dust jacket.

A leading economist and former central banker discusses the evolution of central bank communication from secretiveness to transparency and accountability. Central bank communication has evolved from secretiveness to transparency and accountability—from a reluctance to give out any information at all to the belief in communication as a panacea for effective policy. In this book, Otmar Issing, himself a former central banker, discusses the journey toward transparency in central bank communication. Issing traces the development of transparency, examining the Bank of England as an example of extreme reticence and European Central Bank's President Mario Draghi as a practitioner of effective communication. He argues that the ultimate goal of central bank communication is to make monetary policy more effective, and describes the practice and theory of communication as an evolutionary process. For a long time, the Federal Reserve never made its monetary policy decisions public; the European Central Bank, on the other hand, had to adopt a modern communication strategy from the outset. Issing discusses the importance of guiding expectations in central bank communication, and points to financial markets as the most important recipients of this communication. He discusses the obligations of accountability and transparency, although he notes that total transparency is a “mirage.” Issing argues that the central message to the public must always be that the stability of a nation's currency is the bank's priority.

Banking on Reform examines the political determinants of recent reforms to monetary policy institutions in the industrial democracies. With these reforms, political parties have sought to draw on the political credibility of an independent central bank to cope with electoral consequences of economic internalization and deindustrialization. New Zealand and Italy made the initial efforts to grant their central banks independence. More recently, France, Spain, Britain, and Sweden have reformed their central banks' independence. Additionally, members of the European Union have implemented a single currency, with an independent European central bank to administer monetary policy. Banking on Reform stresses the politics surrounding the choice of these institutions, specifically the motivations of political parties. Where intraparty conflicts have threatened the party's ability to hold office, politicians have adopted an independent central bank. Where political parties have been secluded from the political consequences of economic change, reform has been thwarted or delayed. The drive toward a single currency also reflects these political concerns. By delegating monetary policy to the European level, politicians in the member states removed a potentially divisive issue from the domestic political agenda, allowing parties to rebuild their support constructed on the basis of other issues. William T. Bernhard provides a variety of evidence to support his argument, such as in-depth case accounts of recent central bank reforms in Italy and Britain, the role of the German Bundesbank in the policy process, and the adoption of the single currency in Europe. Additionally, he utilizes quantitative and statistical tests to enhance his argument. This book will appeal to political scientists, economists, and other social scientists interested in the political and institutional consequences of economic globalization. William T. Bernhard is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The first twenty years of the European Central Bank offer a unique insight into how a central bank can navigate macroeconomic insecurity and crisis. This volume examines the structures and decision-making processes behind the complex measures taken by the ECB to tackle some of the toughest economic challenges in the history of modern Europe.

Although central banking is today often presented as having emerged in the nineteenth or even twentieth century, it has a long and colourful history before 1800, from which important lessons for today's debates can be drawn. While the core of central banking is the issuance of money of the highest possible quality, central banks have also varied considerably in terms of what form of money they issued (deposits or banknotes), what asset mix they held (precious metals, financial claims to the government, loans to private debtors), who owned them (the public, or private shareholders), and who benefitted from their power to provide emergency loans. Central Banking Before 1800: A Rehabilitation reviews 25 central banks that operated before 1800 to provide new insights into the financial system in early modern times. Central Banking Before 1800 rehabilitates pre-1800 central banking, including the role of numerous other institutions, on the European continent. It argues that issuing central bank money is a natural monopoly, and therefore central banks were always based on public charters regulating them and giving them a unique role in a sovereign territorial entity. Many early central banks were not only based on a public charter but were also publicly owned and managed, and had well defined policy objectives. Central Banking Before 1800 reviews these objectives and the financial operations to show that many of today's controversies around central banking date back to the period 1400-1800.