Central Banking

Central banking is the political institution charged with regulating a nation's money supply, the availability and cost of credit, and the foreign-exchange value of its currency, operating for public welfare rather than for private profit. Its principal objectives are to maintain monetary and credit conditions conducive to high employment and production, reasonably stable domestic prices, and adequate international reserves; examples of the institution include the Bank of England, the United States Federal Reserve System, and the Bank of Japan. It has a long evolution, with early antecedents such as the Bank of Amsterdam (1609) and the Bank of Sweden (1668), followed by the Bank of England, founded in 1694 originally as a joint-stock company to purchase government debt, which is widely regarded as the first true central bank in the modern sense; which institution counts as the first is itself a matter of historical debate. Central banking as a distinct institution of economic governance spread progressively to other nations from the 19th century onward. The atlas records no single honest founding year for central banking as an institution, since scholars differ on which early bank counts as the first.