Comparative quantitative research into the causes, responses to, and effects of banking crisis uses two series of crisis data: Reinhart and Rogoff (2009, 2010) and Laeven and Valencia (2013, and their predecessors). While these data sets provide broad coverage, the measures they code have...

Financial cycles of boom and bust are as old as finance itself – a fact that has led some observers to infer that human nature may be a fundamental cause of financial cycles. But “politics” also influences financial cycles by way of government policies and regulations. I argue that...