Central Banking In Nineteenth-century Belgium: Was The Nbb A Lender Of Last Resort?

摘要

It is now commonly accepted that modern central banks have two main objectives: monetary stability and financial stability. There is further a broad consensus that the objective of monetary stability is better defined than the objective of financial stability. In addition, our historical knowledge, at least with regard to Belgium, is much better concerning the history of monetary stability and the role of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) in it. Thus, on the creation of the NBB, Capie remarks: 'The principal objective was the maintenance of convertibility, but of almost equal importance was its role as banker to banks, and it seems that an intention from an early point was that it should act as a lender of last resort. Evidence on how this worked remains limited.' Belgian historiography devotes little attention to the issue. Kauch claims that the NBB was a lender of last resort right from the start in 1850, which would make the institution a very early pioneer in a European context.