Supervision without regulation: Discount limits at the Austro–Hungarian Bank, 1909–13
利用奥匈银行档案的微观数据，研究发现19世纪中央银行在缺乏正式监管权力时，通过设定贴现贷款信用限额来执行监督标准，并在危机中灵活调整限额以履行最后贷款人角色。
Abstract We show that nineteenth century central banks could use credit limits for discount loans as a means to enforce supervisory standards long before they had any formal regulatory powers. Drawing on novel microdata from the Austro–Hungarian Bank's archives, we document that credit limits were continuously monitored and that their size was contingent on counterparties’ liquidity and capital position. Counterparties had an economic motive to abide by informal prudential ‘rules of the game’: higher credit limits enabled counterparties to streamline their day‐to‐day liquidity management. We exploit the heterogeneous exposure of counterparties to an exogenous liquidity shock to evidence that the Bank relaxed credit limits during crises to fulfil its role as a lender of last resort.