Unregulated banking: chaos or order?

Only rarely in the last two hundred years of modern industrial society have governments allowed comparative freedom to break out in the financial markets.

This is a pity since these occasions were associated with stability and prosperity.

This volume examines some of the most important of these episodes and demonstrates that unregulated banking was invariably successful and that central banks' beneficial contribution has been greatly exaggerated.;The studies in this volume have important implications for the evolution of banking regulation and provide pointers as to how an efficient stable banking system could be allowed to develop.

This volume will be of interest to scholars and policymakers alike.