We examine whether examiners were informed and contributed to the health of the banking sector. Information included quantitative information that was eventually made public, quantitative information that remained private, and subjective information dependent on the examiner's production of...

During the contraction from 1929 through 1933, the Federal Reserve System tracked changes in the status of all banks operating in the United States and determined the cause of each bank suspension. This essay analyzes chronological patterns in aggregate series constructed from that data. The...

During the contraction from 1929 through 1933, the Federal Reserve System tracked changes in the status of all banks operating in the United States and determined the cause of each bank suspension. This essay introduces quarterly series derived from that hitherto dormant data and presents...

This paper creates a new database that covers all banks in the United States in the census years between 1870 and 1900 to test the interaction between inequality and financial development when the banking system was starting over from scratch. A fixed-effects panel regression shows that the...

How did problems with subprime mortgages result in a systemic crisis, a panic? The ongoing Panic of 2007 is due to a loss of information about the location and size of risks of loss due to default on a number of interlinked securities, special purpose vehicles, and derivatives, all related to...

Bank failures during banking crises, in theory, can result either from unwarranted depositor withdrawals during events characterized by contagion or panic, or as the result of fundamental bank insolvency. Various views of contagion are described and compared to historical evidence from banking...

Gorton and Huang (2001) argue that private coalitions of banks can act as central banks, issuing private money and providing deposit insurance during times of panic. This lender-of-last-resort role depends upon banking panics occurring threat of liquidation makes the private bank coalition...

The old-age security hypothesis establishes that one important reason why parents have a large offspring is to ensure that they will receive financial support from them in old age. In this paper we use data on fertility and financial development in 19th century U.S. to indirectly test this...

This paper argues that the banking crises in the United States in the early 1930s were similar to the twin crises' -- banking and balance of payments crises -- which have occurred in developing countries in recent years. The downturn that began in 1929 undermined banks that had made risky loans...