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Introduction
The emergence of the Euromarkets has commonly been understood either as a consequence of the changing relationship between states and markets, or as a product of the outward expansion of American finance. This article challenges prevailing accounts. Drawing upon archival material from the Bank of England and the Treasury, the article proposes that the Euromarkets were central to an emerging Anglo-American developmental sphere.1Anglo-American developmental processes occasioned by the Euromarkets played a defining role in the politics of globalisation, spawning novel institutional forms of hybrid Anglo-American financial development in the City of London. These Anglo-American dynamics transformed the regulatory orders on both sides of the Atlantic in a highly interactive manner, eroding the regulatory architecture of the postwar Keynesian state in Britain and destabilising American New Deal regulations. Anglo-American dynamics also reordered the broader regulatory context of international banking through the development of offshore and the emergence of the Basle regime. The Euromarkets set in motion a 'transatlantic regulatory feedback loop' that destabilised transatlantic regulatory regimes. Many of the deregulatory moves in Britain and America during the ideological transformation of the 'neoliberal era' were incubated during the 1960s.
The article begins by reviewing existing literature on the Euromarkets, suggesting that scholars have overlooked the constitutive role of Anglo-American development. An alternative conceptual framework, focusing upon the institutional connectivity underpinning Anglo-American development, is then outlined. In the second half, the article turns towards the institutional outcomes of Anglo-American development by examining evidence of Anglo-American interest rate interdependence alongside previously unpublished archival evidence from the Bank of England and the Treasury, some of which has only recently become available under the thirty-year rule. This evidence reveals the impact of arriving American banks upon the institutional development of the Bank of England and the integration of Anglo-American money markets. A number of novel institutional developments, emerging from the co-constitutive interaction of Anglo-American finance, and their significance for the broader transformation of the international financial system, are discussed. Finally, the article explores the impact of the transatlantic regulatory feedback loop and its significance for understanding the deeper Anglo-American origins of financial deregulation.
States, markets, and the Euromarkets
The debate over the Euromarkets has focused upon three main themes: firstly, attempting to identify their specific historical origins,