The paper examines the New York Clearing House (NYCH) as a lender of last resort by looking at clearing-house-loan-certificate borrowing during five banking panics of the National Banking Era (1863-1913). In that system, adequate aggregate liquidity provision was passive and dependent upon...

The Federal Reserve System failed to prevent the collapse of intermediation during the Great Depression (1929-1933) and took action as if it was unaware of policies that should have been taken in the event of widespread bank runs. The National Banking Era panics and techniques to alleviate them...