Os Bancos Centrais e sua ambivalência público-privada

The paper analyzes the historic origin of Central Banks, from three basic processes: the evolution and convergence of the free banking system to a hierarchical and centralized system in the Central Bank; the transformation of Clearing Houses in Central Banks, and finally, the processes by which governmental banks were assuming Central Bank’s functions and transforming themselves in Central Banks. The assumes the hypothesis by which the Central Banks were not created arbitrarily by Government, but from the evolution of private banking system suffering periodic crises, which needed public intervention. Finally, the paper concludes that this historic origorigin grounds the ambivalent public-private nature in Central Banks