Danger to the old lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797-1821

Nuno Palma and Patrick O’Brien
Additional contact information
Patrick O’Brien: London School of Economics

No 17001, Working Papers from Economic History Society

Abstract: "The Bank Restriction Act of 1797 suspended the convertibility of the Bank of England's notes into gold. The current historical consensus is that the suspension was a result of the state's need to finance the war, France’s remonetization, a loss of confidence in the English country banks, and a run on the Bank of England’s reserves following a landing of French troops in Wales. We argue that while these factors help us understand the timing of the Restriction period, they cannot explain its success. We deploy new long-term data which leads us to a complementary explanation: the policy succeeded thanks to the reputation of the Bank of England, achieved through a century of prudential collaboration between the Bank and the Treasury."

Keywords: "Bank of England; financial revolution; fiat money; money supply; monetary policy commitment; reputation; and time-consistency; regime shift; financial sector growth" (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N13 N23 N43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-cse, nep-his and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ehes.org/EHES_100.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ehes.org/EHES_100.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.ehes.org/EHES_100.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://ehes.org/EHES_100.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797–1821 (2020)
Working Paper: Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the Regime Shift to Paper Money, 1797-1821 (2018)
Working Paper: Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the Regime Shift to Paper Money, 1797-1821 (2016)
Working Paper: Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797-1821 (2016)
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:ehs:wpaper:17001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Economic History Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chair Public Engagement Committe (currently David Higgins - Newcastle) ().