Interconnections between banking crises and fiscal crises have a long history. We document the long-run evolution from classic banking panics toward modern banking crises where financial guarantees are associated with crisis resolution. Recent crises feature a feedback loop between bank...

This paper shows that agents underreact to rare and extreme signals. Agents observing these signals choose delay, hoping to condition their behavior on future actors (who may themselves also delay). This stalemate prevents society from recognizing the presence of rare states, even when the...