Essays on historical banking

This dissertation studies the British banking sector from the end of the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The British banking sector at that time was one of the most developed ones and was characterized by the fact that very little regulation existed concerning, amongst others, deposit insurance and anti-competitive measures.

The first two chapters, joint with Fabio Braggion and Lyndon Moore, shed light on how individual banks evolved over time in terms of their branch network and how exactly the banking sector as a whole changed from a large number of small provincial banks to a concentrated banking sector with five large players. In addition, the lack of regulation makes it possible to look at how market
participants, such as depositors, borrowers and banks’ shareholders, reacted to and were influenced by such a shift in concentration. The last chapter of this thesis, using a unique and hand collected dataset on micro-level bank lending of the North and South Wales bank, empirically investigates whether there is support for the existence of a bank risk taking channel of monetary policy.