Studies in financial organization

The present studies are a fragment of an international enquiry into the working of the Western European monetary and banking systems and capital markets undertaken in 1939. In this country the study was entrusted to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and was placed under the direction of Mr N.F. Hall, whom the present author was to have assisted. The original plan envisaged studies of the 'public' Sector (the Treasury and extra-budgetary funds) of the Bank of England and the Exchange Equalization Account; and the present studies dealing with the Clearing Banks, the discount market and other private financial institutions. Further sections were to have dealt with the institutions, public and private, by which savings are canalized-such as the Post Office Savings Bank, Building Societies, Insurance Companies and so forth-as well as the Stock Exchanges.

At the outbreak of the war of 1939-45 the present studies were nearing completion. Mr Hall and his staff were called away to public service and the present author was engaged in other tasks, so that it has not been possible to complete the whole scheme. It has, therefore, been decided to publish the existing sections separately. They form a consistent whole and are of interest as providing an up-to-date survey of their subject before war conditions dislocated it and diverted its development. The complex interrelations be tween the different parts of the financial structure render an analytical description somewhat cumbrous. Repetitions are un avoidable and the fact that many important institutions have not been included in the analysis causes unavoidable gaps in the narrative. Nevertheless, the importance of the topic for the future, and the prevalence of misconceptions about the past, would seem to justify an attempt at a consistent treatment of the institutional organization of the financial system on the basis of modern economic doctrine.