The dramatic reduction in the growth rate of bank lending associated with the 1990-91 recession, particularly in New England, has evoked claims by many observers of a credit crunch. However, because of the difficulty in determining whether the observed slow credit growth is a demand or supply...

During the 1980s, the New England economy prospered relative to the nation as a whole, with lower unemployment rates, more rapidly rising real estate prices, and lower rates of business failures. As the economic tide turned against New England at the end of the decade, the rate of business...

Focusing on localized measures of bank health and economic activity, and renters as well as homeowners, this paper uses an innovative approach to identifying households likely in need of credit to investigate the effect on household spending of a deterioration in local-bank health. The analysis...