Nineteenth-century financial writer Walter Bagehot is often credited for recommending that central banks shore up the banking system by acting as lender of last resort to troubled banks. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, however, the Bank of England helped foster British financial stability in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by ignoring that piece of advice.
Bagehots Lender of Last Resort
A Hollow Hallowed Tradition
By John H. Wood
This
article
appeared in
the Winter 2002/03 issue of The Independent Review.
Other Independent Review articles by John H. Wood | |
Summer 2021 | The Cause of the Great Depression: The Decision to Resume the Gold Standard on Prewar Terms |