This paper tests whether deposit insurance promotes financial depth by influencing depositor behavior. To do so, we rely on two schemes operating in the U.S. during the 1920s: the Postal Savings System and the deposit insurance schemes that some states had adopted. We exploit the discontinuity...

This paper tests whether deposit insurance promotes financial depth by influencing depositor behavior. To do so, we rely on two schemes operating in the U.S. during the 1920s: the Postal Savings System and the deposit insurance schemes that some states had adopted. We exploit the discontinuity...

Using a newly constructed database of bank failures for the period 1900 to 1930, this paper estimates a dynamic regression model to examine the extent to which banking instability at the state level affects the proportion of state deposits relative to national deposits. The main results indicate...