This paper investigates the impact of the history of crises on macroeconomic performance. We first study the impact of past banking crises on the probability of a future banking crisis. Applying data for 1980 - 2010 for all countries for which the required information is available, controlling...

Differently from Atkinson and Morelli (2011) who detect no clear link between increases in income inequality and systemic banking crises, we show that a large majority of crises occurred between 1982 and 2008 have been preceded by persistently high levels of income inequality. Such association...