ABSTRACT
The early central banks of Great Britain and the United States were profit-seeking private institutions, albeit with government privileges, whose fortunes were tied to those of other banks and of the economy in general. They were much less powerful than modern (post-1914) central banks unconstrained by the gold standard or other market and even political forces, and had to respond to events subject to their limited powers in ways they hoped would be conducive to their own and the general prosperity. Their decision-making, in other words, could not be as remote from markets and the public as that of modern central banks.
