On 16th November 2009, SUERF, CEPS and the Belgian Financial Forum coorganized a conference "Crisis management at cross-roads" in Brussels. All papers in the present volume are based on contributions at the conference and the SUERF Annual Lecture which followed the event.

Chapter 1: Introduction -- Part I: The management of banking crises in Italy: old and new solutions in a framework of increasing complexity -- Chapter 2: The overall picture. System weaknesses and individual problems -- Chapter 3: The Tercas case: a watershed -- Chapter 4: The first application...

In this brief, Biagio Bossone of the International Monetary Fund evaluates narrow banking from the perspective of modern theories of financial intermediation. These theories portray the status quo banking system as a solution to otherwise intractable problems of imperfect information, risk, and...