ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses the US Congressional Record and the Italian Parliamentary Acts. In the Italian case, the 1936 Banking Act was designed within the walls of the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), thus analysed contemporary documents of IRI as well as the main banks of the time and of the Bank of Italy. It retraces the evolution of the US and Italian banking sectors and the relations with the financial markets in the decades prior to the 1930s. The first Glass-Steagall Act was enacted on 27 February 1932; it was an emergency measure, which mainly broadened the collateral the Federal Reserve System could hold against loans to individual banks. After a recapitulation of the banking crises in the two countries, the rescue measures undertaken, the chapter focuses on the letter of the two sets of legislation, with respect to the bank-industry-financial markets linkages. These were the 1933 US Banking Act and 1936 Italian Banking Act.