Banking systems/ edited by Benjamin Haggott Beckhart

A number of year ago, the late H. Parker Willis and I edited a volume entitled Foreign Banking Systems Published in 19eg, this study included chapters on the banking systems of sixteen countries. The intervening years have brought about great changes in bank ing and credit structures. The breakdown of commercial banking systems in the depression years resulted not only in widespread gov ernment intervention but also in the adoption of far-reaching leg islation. This legislation commonly took the form of separating commercial from investment banking and of establishing banking commissions with extensive supervisory powers. The war and the succeeding years of uneasy peace brought about further revolutionary changes in banking. Central banks have been nationalized in most countries and commercial banks have suffered the same fate in a few. A host of new governmental credit institu tions has been established; governments have undertaken to guarantee many types of loans. The objectives of monetary and credit policies have expanded in many nations to include the maintefiance of low interest rates and full employment. The techniques of credit control have expanded to include a selective control of various types of credit and direct control over the individual loans of commercial banks.

In view of these and many other changes, the time seemed an op portune one to issue a successor volume to Foreign Banking Systems. This was made possible by a generous grant of funds on the part of the Merrill Foundation for Advancement of Financial Knowledge. Incorporated. Since the new volume is not simply a revision of the former one, and since it contains a chapter on the banking systems of the United States, it has been given the title Banking Systems. This volume, like its predecessor, contains chapters on the banking systems of sixteen nations. In eleven instances the countries selected were those covered in the earlier study.