Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948–1973 (Studies in Macroeconomic History)
Cambridge University Press, 11/15/2018
EAN 9781108415019, ISBN10: 1108415016
Hardcover, 350 pages, 22.9 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
It is common wisdom that central banks in the postwar (1945–1970s) period were passive bureaucracies constrained by fixed-exchange rates and inflationist fiscal policies. This view is mostly retrospective and informed by US and UK experiences. This book tells a different story. Eric Monnet shows that the Banque de France was at the heart of the postwar financial system and economic planning, and that it contributed to economic growth by both stabilizing inflation and fostering direct lending to priority economic activities. Credit was institutionalized as a social and economic objective. Monetary policy and credit controls were conflated. He then broadens his analysis to other European countries and sheds light on the evolution of central banks and credit policy before the Monetary Union. This new understanding has important ramifications for today, since many emerging markets have central bank policies that are similar to Western Europe's in the decades of high growth.
Introduction
Part I. Institutionalizing Credit
Introduction to Part I
chronology and methodology
1. French credit policies before 1945
2. The nationalization of credit from 1945 to the late 1950s
3. Development then gradual de-institutionalization
the 1960s and 1970s
Part II. Managing Credit
4. Monetary policy without interest rates. Domestic macroeconomic effects and international issues of credit controls
5. Blurred lines. The two faces of Banque de France loans to the Treasury (1948–73)
6. Financing the postwar Golden Age. The Banque de France, 'investment credit' and capital allocation
7. The rise and fall of national credit policies. Implications for the history of European varieties of capitalism and monetary integration
Conclusion.