This collection of essays by the eminent financial and monetary historians Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood examines and offers explanations of the parts played by money and the banking system in the British economy over the last two centuries.

Structured in three chronological parts, it covers: the period of the classical gold standard from 1870 until the First World War, and the associated key issues of the time; the troublesome interwar years, when there was a breakdown in the international economy, the Second World War and immediate post-War years; and the international dimensions of the post-War period up to the present day. It deals with financial crises, periods of stability, and Britain in the international system, and covers topics such as debt management, money and the exchange rate, interest rates and velocity, as well as central bank independence, monetary unions, price controls and the role of the IMF.

Combining empirical research and economic theory, this timely publication is essential reading for all scholars of financial, monetary, and economic history.

About the Author:
Forrest Capie worked as an accountant for Ford Motor Company and as a civil servant in the Department of Trade and Industry in New Zealand, before reading economics and economic history at the University of Auckland and the London School of Economics. Amongst many books, he has written The History of the Bank of England, Depression and Protectionism, and was co-author of The Inter-War British Economy. He has also written papers on monetary and trade history and was editor of The Economic History Review from 1992-1999. He served on the Shadow Chancellor's advisory council from 1999 to 2004, and on the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee from 2002 to 2004.

Geoffrey Wood has been Visiting Economist with the Bank of England, where from 1994 to 2004 he was a Special Advisor on Financial Stability. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and Visiting Professor at the University of Athens and the University of Oxford. He has served as a research adviser at the Bank of Finland and also advised the New Zealand Treasury. He has served for some time as Special Adviser to the Treasury Select Committee of the House of Commons. He is on the Editorial Boards of the Greek Economic Review, The Journal of Financial Education, and the European Journal of Political Economy, and is a General Editor of the Journal of Financial Regulation.