IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/nierev/v265y2023ip70-104_8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adam Smith And The Bankers: Retrospect And Prospect

Author

Listed:
  • Duncan, Alfred
  • Nolan, Charles

Abstract

Adam Smith promoted free banking—private, competitive, convertible banknotes. He also supported restrictions on banks. We study Smith’s views and the era in which they developed, suggesting his ‘regulations’ were a backstop against banks’ risks to depositors but primarily monetary stability. In modern parlance, Smith supported macroprudential regulations to underpin monetary stability, as did Friedman and Schwartz the US FDIC. We discuss why Smith’s vision for banking went unrealised. Bank regulation became microprudential and ran aground in 2008/2009. The prominence of macroprudential regulation now provides a chance to reorientate regulation to support monetary stability. Early signs are not promising.

Suggested Citation

  • Duncan, Alfred & Nolan, Charles, 2023. "Adam Smith And The Bankers: Retrospect And Prospect," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 265, pages 70-104, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:nierev:v:265:y:2023:i::p:70-104_8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0027950123000248/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Newby, Elisa, 2012. "The suspension of the gold standard as sustainable monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1498-1519.
    2. 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.
    3. Stephan Heblich & Alex Trew, 2019. "Banking and Industrialization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1753-1796.
    4. David Laidler, 1981. "Adam Smith as a Monetary Economist," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 14(2), pages 185-200, May.
    5. Charles W. Calomiris & Stephen H. Haber, 2015. "Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 10177-2.
    6. Samuel Hollander, 1999. "Jeremy Bentham and Adam Smith on the usury laws: a 'Smithian' reply to Bentham and a new problem," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(4), pages 523-551.
    7. Arnon,Arie, 2011. "Monetary Theory and Policy from Hume and Smith to Wicksell," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521191135, September.
    8. Henry Hamilton, 1956. "The Failure Of The Ayr Bank, 1772," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 8(3), pages 405-417, April.
    9. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1, October.
    10. Graeme Acheson & Charles Hickson & John Turner, 2011. "Organisational flexibility and governance in a civil-law regime: Scottish partnership banks during the Industrial Revolution," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(4), pages 505-529.
    11. Flannery, Mark J, 1986. "Asymmetric Information and Risky Debt Maturity Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 19-37, March.
    12. Mark Billings & Forrest Capie, 2007. "Capital in British banking, 1920-1970," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 139-162.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Madarász, Aladár, 2012. "Adósság, pénz és szabadság [Taxation, money and freedom]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 457-507.
    2. Josh Ryan-Collins, 2015. "Is Monetary Financing Inflationary? A Case Study of the Canadian Economy, 1935-75," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_848, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Michael D. Bordo & Christopher M. Meissner, 2015. "Growing Up to Stability? Financial Globalization, Financial Development and Financial Crises," NBER Working Papers 21287, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Alfred Duncan & Charles Nolan, 2020. "Reform of the UK Financial Policy Committee," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(1), pages 1-30, February.
    5. Chao Gu & Cyril Monnet & Ed Nosal & Randall Wright, 2019. "On the Instability of Banking and Other Financial Intermediation," Working Papers 19.04, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    6. Lychakov, Nikita, 2018. "Government-made bank distress: Industrialisation policies and the Russian financial crisis of 1899-1902," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2018-11, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    7. Calomiris, Charles W. & Carlson, Mark, 2017. "Interbank networks in the National Banking Era: Their purpose and their role in the Panic of 1893," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 434-453.
    8. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Isabel Schnabel, 2014. "Bubbles and Central Banks: Historical Perspectives," Working Papers 1411, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, revised 31 Oct 2014.
    9. Gu, Chao & Monnet, Cyril & Nosal, Ed & Wright, Randall, 2023. "Diamond–Dybvig and beyond: On the instability of banking," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    10. van Eeghen, Piet-Hein, 2021. "Funding money-creating banks: Cash funding, balance sheet funding and the moral hazard of currency elasticity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Newby, Elisa, 2012. "The suspension of the gold standard as sustainable monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1498-1519.
    12. Salter, Alexander William & Tarko, Vlad, 2017. "Polycentric banking and macroeconomic stability," Business and Politics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 365-395, June.
    13. Sanjiv R. Das & Kris James Mitchener & Angela Vossmeyer, 2022. "Bank Regulation, Network Topology, and Systemic Risk: Evidence from the Great Depression," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1261-1312, August.
    14. Bignon, Vincent & Avaro, Maylis, 2019. "At Your Service! Liquidity Provision and Risk Management in 19th Century France," CEPR Discussion Papers 13556, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Salter, Alexander & Tarko, Vlad, 2017. "Governing the Financial System: A Theory of Financial Resilience," Working Papers 06954, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    16. Karl‐Friedrich Israel, 2021. "The fiat money illusion: On the cost‐efficiency of modern central banking," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(6), pages 1701-1719, June.
    17. Chao Gu & Cyril Monnet & Ed Nosal & Randall Wright, 2019. "On the Instability of Banking and Financial Intermediation," Working Papers 1901, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    18. Stelios Arvanitis & Alexandros Louka, 2015. "Martingale Transforms with Mixed Stable Limits and the QMLE for Conditionally Heteroskedastic Models," Working Papers 201508, Athens University Of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    19. Barry Eichengreen & Rui Esteves, 2022. "Up and away? Inflation and debt consolidation in historical perspective," Oxford Open Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 1, pages 1-20.
    20. Michele Bee & Luiz Felipe Bruzzi Curi, 2024. "Agreement is money: Beyond the chartalist reading of Adam Smith," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG 666, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.

    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:cup:nierev:v:265:y:2023:i::p:70-104_8. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.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.