Walter Bagehot
Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market book is one of the all-time classics of finance and monetary policy, and is still relied upon today by central banks world-wide for its statement of broad principles in times of financial calamity. Written in 1873 in reaction to the Bank of England’s response to a financial meltdown, the collapse of a bank, which induced a panic that spread throughout the country in 1866, Lombard Street was one of the first books to describe international monetary policy in clear, easy-to-understand terms. Walter Bagehot’s advice for central bankers a century and a half ago is still sage today: in times of financial panic, lend freely to solvent firms with good collateral at higher-but-fair rates--a seemingly simple principle but one that many countries failed to follow, always to their detriment, until the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s made Bagehot’s advice mainstream theory for central bankers. Eminently readable, and both useful and important today as a foundational document, Lombard Street is essential reading for anyone interested in basic monetary policy and the workings of central banks in times of crisis.
