Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: the Bank of England and the British economy, 1694–1844

Patrick K. O'Brien and Nuno Palma

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: From its foundation as a private corporation in 1694, the Bank of England extended large amounts of credit to support the British private economy and to support an increasingly centralised British state. The Bank helped the British state reach a position of geopolitical and economic hegemony in the international economic order. In this paper, we deploy recalibrated financial data to analyse an evolving trajectory of connections between the British economy, the state, and the Bank of England. We show how these connections contributed to form an effective and efficient fiscal–naval state and promote the development of a system of financial intermediation for the economy. This symbiotic relationship became stronger after 1793. The evidence that we consider here shows that although the Bank was nominally a private institution and profits were paid to its shareholders, it was playing a public role well before Bagehot's doctrine.

Keywords: Bank of England; national defence; state-building institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 N13 N23 N43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2023-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-his and nep-mon
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Economic History Review, 1, February, 2023, 76(1), pp. 305 - 329. ISSN: 0013-0117

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/116868/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694–1844 (2023)
Working Paper: Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: the bank of England and the British economy, 1694-1844 (2022)
Working Paper: Not an ordinary bank but a great engine of state: The Bank of England and the British economy, 1694-1844 (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:116868

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().