Banking Crises

The history of banking around the world has been punctuated by frequent systemic crises. As with Tolstoy's unhappy families, not all crises are the same; distinct roles have been played at different times by mismanagement, government interference and macroeconomic shocks. This review identifies common features of crises in recent decades and describes how costly they have been in terms of their fiscal burden and the impact on macroeconomic growth. It proceeds to outline the conceptual issues identified by theoreticians and considers appropriate policy responses. A lull in the new millennium led to optimism that banking crises might be a thing of the past, but the events of 2007-8 have shown such optimism, often characteristic of previous macro upswings, to be unwarranted.