It is useful to reflect on how the financial environment changed between the credit crunch episode of the early 1990s and the recent financial crisis. What did we learn from the earlier crisis, and how did the credit crunch literature help guide policy in the more recent crisis? Two important...

Events that transpired during the recent financial crisis highlight the important role that financial intermediaries still play in the economy, especially during economic downturns. While the breadth and severity of the financial crisis took most observers by surprise, it has renewed academic...

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...