Money, Banking, and the Canadian Financial System

Robert B. Shortly was a chartered accountant in Toronto.

“Money is not a mechanism, it is an institution, one of the most remarkable of human institutions.” With this quote from Sir John Hicks, the author, who is a professor at the Royal Military College, directs the focus of the book to “the lineage, development and practices of institutions which allow us to make payment and obtain credit to enhance our welfare.”

The book is divided into six sections: Money and Monetary Standards, Commercial Banking, Financial Markets and Non-Bank Financial Institutions, Central Banking and Monetary Control, Monetary Theory and Policy, and Money and the International Economy.

While the descriptive portion is Canadian, the theoretical discussions are inevitably universal and common to any monetary theory course.

This is definitely a textbook and not for the casual reader. It fits ideally into a money and banking course at the university level. As it is written by a Canadian with a Canadian emphasis, it should be of value to Canadian instructors.