Calendrier du 25 septembre 2019
Economic History Seminar
Du 25/09/2019 de 12:30 à 14:00
Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris
CERRETANO Valerio (University of Glasgow)
Central banks, credit provision and industrial intervention: the cases of Britain, France and Italy, 1914-1980. A research agenda.
Central banks have in the past been involved in the provision of long-term credit and have in some cases been important industrial players. The paper intends to establish a possible research agenda aimed at comparing the various European experiences, or the least those which have received most scholarly attention. Hence the choice of Britain, France and Italy, where sources can more easily be accessed and where central banks played an important role in what might be called industrial policy since at least the First World War. The perspective here is that of industrial history rather than that of financial or central banking history, although the history of central banks and central banking undeniably provides valuable help in the understanding of this phenomenon. What definition can we give to intervention, i.e. direct management of firms or indirect forms of financing? Can we distinguish different layers of intervention, i.e. the one devised along with the governments (treasuries) as a broader attempt at economic planning and the one carried out during periods of economic duress? Why have central banks become the chosen instrument of intervention during economic crises? Was intervention successful? These are some of the questions that the paper will be attempting. Research can take different turns and can be used in different ways. It can show that central banks were crucial actors in the industrialisation of the west, i.e. in the provision of long-term finance and in the selection of sectors to stimulate. But it could also be used as evidence that central banks should more actively be involved in industrial policy in developing countries (Epstein). These have become sensitive points in scholarly and public debate after 2008, but the question of the reverberations and possible uses of this type of research in contemporary debate falls, however, outside the scope of this paper.