Central Bank of Nigeria Library

The economics of banking operations :

Galbraith, John Alexander.

The economics of banking operations : a Canadian study / - Montreal : McGill University Press, c1963. - xvii, 510 p. ;

"Based upon ... [the author's] Ph. D. dissertation presented to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, McGill University, in October 1958." Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references: p. 477-493.

This is a book for serious students of the economics of banking for its fundamentals are treated at an advanced level. There are seven chapters, each of which is a study in itself. The first chapter, "The Nature and Consequences of Domestic Banking Operations," considers the activities of commercial banks as borrowers, lenders, and investors. Chapter 2 "The Economics of Banking 'Output,'" begins with a useful summary of the literature on the availability doctrine and then develops a theory of lending behavior, assuming that banks either maximize profits or
maximize profits from loans. "Competition, Profits, and the Capital Accounts" is the title of the third chapter. Here the author argues that even though competition between commercial banks will lower their profits in the short run, the results of this com- petition may restrict the growth of nonbank financial institutions, and bank profits in the long run may be greater. Chapter 4, "Interregional Banking Transactions and Operations," considers the pros and cons of branch versus unit banking. Most of the arguments are shown to be fallacious.The fifth chapter is concerned with international banking transactions and operations. It considers mainly banking arrangements under flexible exchange rates. The sixth chapter is about government financial operations. In the final chapter, "Central Banking," the author is first concerned with the definition of a central bank. A bank becomes a central bank if it operates without consideration for its profit position; it is a question of motive.One of the important conclusions of this chapter is that the basic principle of central-bank control is the manipulation of excess cash.


Banks and banking.

HG1586 / .G22

332.1 / GAL