In the past two decades, in a series of banking crises around the world, banks have become systematically insolvent. These crises have occurred in developed and developing economies alike. To make such financial system breakdowns less likely and to limit their costs if they occur, policymakers...

Explicit deposit insurance has been spreading rapidly in recent years, even to countries with low levels of financial and institutional development. Economic theory indicates that deposit-insurance design features interact--for good or ill--with country-specific elements of the financial and...