Even after controlling for local economic conditions, differences in state bank supervision and regulation contribute toward explaining the large variation in state bank suspension rates across U.S. counties during the Great Depression. More stringent capital requirements lowered suspension...

The Panic of 1907 is an important episode in American financial history because it led, in part, to the creation of the Federal Reserve. Although much has been written about the crisis, little has been said about its underlying causes. This study identifies the San Francisco earthquake and its...

The Great Depression provides a unique setting to test the impact of monetary policies on economic activity in a monetary union within the same country during a severe crisis. Until the mid-1930s, the 12 Federal Reserve banks had the ability to set their own discount rates and conduct...

Economists have long studied the relationship between the real and monetary sectors. We examine the macroeconomic effects of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a shock that immediately reduced United States. GNP by 1.5-1.8 percentage points. The quake's impact manifested itself in gold flows, as...

Stock return volatility during the Great Depression has been labeled a "volatility puzzle" because the standard deviation of stock returns was two to three times higher than any other period in American history (Officer, 1973; Wilson, Sylla, and Jones; 1990). We investigate the "volatility puzzle"...