"The enormous increase in the United Kingdom's national debt during the two world wars of the twentieth century meant that government debt management, which had hitherto been regarded as a matter of ‘budgetary convenience', acquired great macroeconomic significance. The paper examines and compares four episodes in the management of the national debt since 1919 and in each case explores the relationship between debt management and monetary policy. The current policy of quantitative easing is a form of government debt management and the paper discusses it in the context of the earlier episodes."

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