Historical data on French banks, credit and the macroeconomy

Click here to download the dataset  ( annual time series)

Please read and cite the following papers that explain the construction of these data: 

Baubeau, P., Monnet, E., Riva, A., & Ungaro, S. (2021). Flight-to-safety and the credit crunch: a new history of the banking crises in France during the Great Depression. The Economic History Review, 74(1), 223–250.  [EHR proofs]    Working paper BdF (No. 698) [containing additional figures]  

Bonhoure, E., Clausse, H., Monnet, E., & Riva, A. (2021). The Great Expansion. The Exceptional Spread of Bank Branches in Interwar France (No. 16698). CEPR Discussion Papers. 


Click here to download the dataset  (time series)

Vivien Levy-Garboua & Eric Monnet, Les taux d'intérêt en France, 1800-2015", Revue d"économie financière, no 1, p. 35-58.,mars 2016,   [Interest rates in France, 1800-2015]


Click here to download the data   (consumer prices, railway revenues - a proxy for the business cycle -, interest rates, stock market, central bank balance sheet, exports, imports, gold flows, credit, etc. )

Please cite and read the following paper to understand the data sources

Bazot, G., Bordo, M. D., & Monnet, E. (2016). International shocks and the balance sheet of the Bank of France under the classical gold standard. Explorations in Economic History, 62, 87-107. 


Click here to download the  data   (consumer prices, industrial production, unemployment, interest rates, balance of payment, credit,  measure of monetary policy tightening, etc. )

Please cite and read the following paper to understand the data sources: 

Monnet, Eric. 2014. "Monetary Policy without Interest Rates: Evidence from France's Golden Age (1948 to 1973) Using a Narrative Approach." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 6 (4): 137-69. 


Click here to download the dataset

Please cite and read the following chapter to understand the data sources: 

Monnet, E. (2018). Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948 1973. Cambridge University Press. chapter 6.


Click here to download the dataset (contains all figures in the book Controlling credit)

Please cite and read the following chapters to understand the data sources: 

Monnet, E. (2018). Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948 1973. Cambridge University Press. chapter 5 (for public debt), chapter 6 (for credit data).