Sraffa's lectures on Continental banking: A preliminary appraisal

Piero Sraffa delivered a course of lectures on Continental banking to Cambridge undergraduates in the spring term of 1929 and 1930. He wrote extensive lecture notes, from which this paper reconstructs the structure and contents of the course. Sraffa emphasised the differences between the British and Continental, particularly German, banking systems, stressing the importance of the relations between banks and industry on the Continent. He also underlined the different roles played by central banks in the two systems. The lectures are particularly interesting for the light they throw on large German banks in the 1920s and on the eve of their great crisis. The role of the allies in trying to reconstruct the German banking system after the defeat of Germany on lines which would weaken the banks' links with industry is brought into relief, as are the Allies' reduction of the Reichsbank's role as lender of last resort. Due attention is paid to the role of foreign capital in German banking in the 1920s and to the crucial impact of the drying up of this resource at the end of the 1920s.