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The Evolution of Australian Monetary Policy in the 1950s |
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| Authors: | Mike Beggs |
| Affiliation: | University of SydneyThe author would like to thank Dick Bryan, John King and two anonymous reviewers for helpful advice on earlier versions of this paper. |
| Abstract: | The 1950s in Australia was a decade of major change in both central banking and the financial system. The changes fed upon one another: financial innovation responded to monetary policy; the authorities adapted their strategy in response. The private banks resisted the harnessing of their balance sheets to policy, and a protracted process of conflict and compromise unfolded. Meanwhile, the growth of non‐bank financial institutions undermined bank‐centred policy. Official controls on bank interest rates opened a space for the new intermediaries. The central bank's attempt to restrain their growth contributed to a credit squeeze at the turn of the 1960s. |
| Keywords: | E‐52 (monetary policy) E58 (central banks and their policies) E65 (studies of particular policy episodes) N27 (economic history – financial markets and institutions – Africa, Oceania) N47 (economic history – government, war, law, international relations, and regulation – Africa, Oceania) 1950s Australia central banking financial innovation monetary policy |