IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v62y2009is1p80-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Treasury, Britain's postwar reconstruction, and the industrial intervention of the Bank of England, 1921–91

Author

Listed:
  • VALERIO CERRETANO

Abstract

This article describes how the Trade Facilities Act and the liquidation of certain government‐owned assets spurred the industrial intervention of the Bank of England in the 1920s. What emerges is that the Treasury had a much greater role in the Bank of England's industrial intervention than has been hitherto suggested. This article places the theme of the Bank of England's industrial intervention within broader discussions about Treasury history and Britain's postwar reconstruction, and refines the argument that the original involvement of the Bank of England with industry merely represented an extension of its prewar operations of branch banking and its duties as a central bank.

Suggested Citation

  • Valerio Cerretano, 2009. "The Treasury, Britain's postwar reconstruction, and the industrial intervention of the Bank of England, 1921–91," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(s1), pages 80-100, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:62:y:2009:i:s1:p:80-100
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00475.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00475.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00475.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Broadberry, S. N. & Crafts, N. F. R., 1992. "Britain's Productivity Gap in the 1930s: Some Neglected Factors," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(3), pages 531-558, September.
    2. Susan Howson, 1974. "The Origins of Dear Money, 1919-20," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 27(1), pages 88-107, February.
    3. S. Broadberry & N. Crafts, 2001. "Competition and Innovation in 1950s Britain," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 97-118.
    4. Lazonick, William, 1981. "Competition, Specialization, and Industrial Decline," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 31-38, March.
    5. Roger Middleton, 1996. "GOVERNMENT VERSUS the MARKET," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 313.
    6. Duncan M. Ross, 1996. "Commercial banking in a market-oriented financial system: Britain between the wars," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 49(2), pages 314-335, May.
    7. Sue Bowden & Michael Collins, 1992. "The Bank of England, industrial regeneration, and hire purchase between the wars," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 45(1), pages 120-136, February.
    8. Greaves, Julian I., 2002. "Competition, Collusion, and Confusion: The State and the Reorganization of the British Cotton Industry, 1931–1939," Enterprise & Society, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 48-79, March.
    9. Alan Booth, 1987. "Britain in the 1930s: a managed economy?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 40(4), pages 499-522, November.
    10. G.C. Peden, 1989. "Britain in the 1930s: a managed economy? A comment," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 42(4), pages 538-543, November.
    11. Michael Collins, 1998. "English Bank Development within a European Context, 1870–1939," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 51(1), pages 1-24, February.
    12. Garside, W. R. & Greaves, J. I., 1996. "The Bank of England and industrial intervention in interwar Britain1," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 69-86, April.
    13. Peden, G. C., 2000. "The Treasury and British Public Policy 1906-1959," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198207078.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eric Monnet & Francois R. Velde, 2020. "Money, Banking, and Old-School Historical Economics," Working Paper Series WP-2020-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Crafts, Nicholas, 2011. "British Relative Economic Decline Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 8384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "British relative economic decline revisited: The role of competition," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 17-29.
    3. David Chambers, 2009. "Gentlemanly capitalism revisited: a case study of the underpricing of initial public offerings on the London Stock Exchange, 1946–861," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(s1), pages 31-56, August.
    4. David Chambers, 2006. "Gentlemanly capitalism revisited: a case study of the underpricing of Initial Public Offerings on the London Stock Exchange, 1946-86," Working Papers 6016, Economic History Society.
    5. Alan Booth, 2003. "The manufacturing failure hypothesis and the performance of British industry during the long boom," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-33, February.
    6. Mark Billings & Simon Mollan & Philip Garnett, 2021. "Debating banking in Britain: The Colwyn committee, 1918," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(6), pages 944-965, August.
    7. Nicholas Crafts, 2013. "Returning to growth: lessons from the 1930s," Working Papers 13010, Economic History Society.
    8. Nicholas Crafts & Peter Fearon, 2010. "Lessons from the 1930s Great Depression," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 285-317, Autumn.
    9. James Cloyne & Nicholas Dimsdale & Natacha Postel-Vinay, 2018. "Taxes and Growth: New Narrative Evidence from Interwar Britain," NBER Working Papers 24659, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. James Cloyne & Nicholas Dimsdale & Natacha Postel-Vinay, 2024. "Taxes and Growth: New Narrative Evidence from Interwar Britain," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2168-2200.
    11. Mark Billings & Forrest Capie, 2011. "Financial crisis, contagion, and the British banking system between the world wars," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(2), pages 193-215.
    12. Stephen Broadberry & Nicholas Crafts, 2003. "UK productivity performance from 1950 to 1979: a restatement of the Broadberry‐Crafts view," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(4), pages 718-735, November.
    13. Turner, John D., 2024. "Three centuries of corporate governance in the UK," QUCEH Working Paper Series 24-01, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    14. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "Creating Competitive Advantage: Policy Lessons from History," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 91, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Broadberry, Stephen & Crafts, Nicholas, 2010. "Openness, Protectionism And Britain’S Productivity Performance Over The Long-Run," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 36, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    16. Singleton,John, 2010. "Central Banking in the Twentieth Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521899093, September.
    17. Martin Myant, 2003. "Czech banking in comparative perspective," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2003(2), pages 131-144.
    18. Marc Prat Sabartes, 2007. "Vertical integration or specialisation: producing and commercialising cotton goods (1815-1913)," Working Papers in Economics 188, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    19. Nicholas Oulton, 2013. "Medium and long run prospects for UK growth in the aftermath of the financial crisis," Discussion Papers 1307, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    20. Bordo, Michael D. & Macdonald, Ronald & Oliver, Michael J., 2009. "Sterling in crisis, 1964–1967," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 437-459, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:62:y:2009:i:s1:p:80-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.