Financial Systems and Economic Growth

Peter L. Rousseau is Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee and secretary-treasurer of the American Economic Association. He is a macroeconomist and economic historian who studies the role of financial markets and institutions in growth and development. He has published extensively in leading economic journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Economic History. Paul Wachtel is Professor of Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business. He has published extensively on macroeconomics, monetary policy, and central banking. He is the co-editor of Comparative Economic Studies and a consultant to the Central Bank of Croatia.

• Introduction Peter L. Rousseau and Paul Wachtel; 1. Growing up to stability? Financial globalization, financial development, and financial crises Michael D. Bordo and Christopher M. Meissner; 2. Episodes of financial deepening: credit booms or growth generators? Peter L. Rousseau and Paul Wachtel; 3. Financing US economic growth, 1790–1860: corporations, markets, and the real economy Robert E. Wright; 4. Banks and democracy John Joseph Wallis; 5. Finance, economic growth, and globalization in the era of the Cold War Niall Ferguson; 6. Anatomy of a regime change: underwriters' reputation, New Deal financial acts and the collapse of international capital markets, 1920–35 Marc Flandreau; 7. Protecting financial stability in the aftermath of World War I: the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's dissenting policy Eugene N. White; 8. Rediscovering macro-prudential regulation: the national banking era from the perspective of 2015 Charles W. Calomiris and Mark Carlson.

'What kind of financial system meets the needs the needs of the economy and how best to avoid excessive financialization and instability are pressing policy issues in the wake of the Great Recession and Global Financial Crisis. These are also issues on which historical evidence sheds valuable light, as the contributors to this fine volume make demonstrably clear. Not only scholars, but also policy makers and regulators, should pay heed to this book.' Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkley