The Bank of Finland 200 years – part two of the historical account of the Bank 'The Parliament's Bank' has been released.
The historical account of the Bank of Finland has been written by the renowned banking historian Antti Kuusterä Ph.D. and Juha Tarkka Ph.D., Advisor to the Board of the Bank of Finland. The book has been published by Otava Publishing Company.
The second part of the two-part work covers the Bank of Finland's history from the Second World War until the end of the 1990s. The first part, 'Imperial Cashier to Central Bank', was published in April 2011.
The most recent work tells of the how outbreak of the Finnish Winter War was also a clear turning point for the Bank of Finland, as its activities became directed at financing the war effort. Once peace was restored, Finland shifted to being a consensus economy with emphasis placed on the significance of organisations representing various stakeholder groups within the economic policy spectrum. Decisions regarding foreign exchange rates and interest rates were politicised in a new way and the hold of parliamentary groups on the bank was stepped up.
The book takes a broad overview of Finland's IMF programme during the balance of payments crisis of the 1970s and present new material on the events behind the liberalisation of the financial markets in the 1980s.
In the 1990s a recession again changed everything. As the economy crashed interest rates were astronomical and currency reserves shrank threateningly low. In the end, the economy was faced with no alternative than devaluation and the end of the stable markka. As the banking crisis eased, Finland applied for membership of the European Union and, along with ten other countries, joined the third phase of the Economic and Monetary Union. For the Bank of Finland this meant an entirely new challenge in the form of membership of the Eurosystem, the body behind the monetary policy of the entire euro area.
The second part of the Bank of Finland's historical account will be presented to the public at the Banks Economic Books discussion forum ('Talouskirja Nyt'), held in the Bank of Finland Museum, Tuesday 20 March 2012 at 5.30 pm (address Snellmaninkatu 2, Helsinki). Antti Kuusterä and Juha Tarkka will discuss the book with Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland.
For further information, please contact: Bank of Finland Communications, tel. +358 10 195 701.