This paper analyzes the contagion effects associated with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and identifies bank-specific vulnerabilities contributing to the subsequent declines in banks' stock returns. We find that uninsured deposits, unrealized losses in held-to-maturity securities, bank...

Financial repression can be used to avoid a government default when fiscal policy is constrained. We present a model showing that optimal financial repression progresses through successive stages with increasing levels of distortion. Data from advanced economies suggest that the initial stage of...

In fighting a financial crisis, opacity (keeping the names of banks borrowing at emergency lending facilities secret) and stigma (the cost of having a bank's name revealed) are desirable to restore confidence. Lending facilities raise the perceived average quality of all banks' assets. Opacity...

After an unprecedented number of banks suspended operations during the Panic of 1893, the head regulator of banks chartered by the United States government allowed about 100 banks to reopen after certifying their solvency. We evaluate whether actions by bank owners to change management, contract...

Liquidity shocks transmitted through interbank connections contributed to bank distress during the Great Depression. New data on interbank connections reveal that banks were much more likely to close when their correspondents closed. Further, after the Federal Reserve was established, banks'...

We study a bank run in India in which private bank branches experience sudden and considerable loss of deposits that seek safety in state-owned public sector banks (PSBs). We trace the consequences of this reallocation using granular data on bank-firm relationships and branch balance sheets. The...

We examine how financial crises redistribute risk, employing novel empirical methods and micro data from the largest financial crisis of the 20th century - the Great Depression. Using balance-sheet and systemic risk measures at the bank level, we build an econometric model with incidental...

The equity and debt prices of large nonbank firms contain information about the future state of the banking system. In this sense, banks are informationally central. The amount of this information varies over time and over equity and debt. During a financial crisis banks are, by definition of a...

During the Progressive Era (1900-29), economic growth was rapid but volatile. Boom and busts witnessed the formation and failure of tens of thousands of firms and thousands of banks. This essay uses new data and methods to identify causal links between failures of banks and bankruptcies of...