ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book suggests that major turning points in the history of United States financial regulation can be better explained as adjustments to productivity shocks in the real economy than as responses to crises. It describes the influence of private interests in determining cross-country differences in bankruptcy procedures. The book analyses the interaction of different constituencies in the evolving regulation of banks in the first half of the nineteenth century in response to recurrent commercial crises. It explores the secular dimension of state intervention in the financial systems of Britain and France. The book provides a timeline of the establishment of in-house Research Departments at European central banks and traces a parallel history of two of them in the interwar years, the 'Servizio studi econonomici e statistici', at the Bank of Italy, and the Servicio de Estudios, at the Bank of Spain.
