This note describes a collection of teaching materials on financial crises and a semester-length course design based on these materials. The collection includes case studies and teaching notes for the instructor on 23 financial crises. Also, the collection includes six technical notes that...

The Great Crash of 1929 ranks as one of the climactic economic events of the last 100 years. It raises important questions at the heart of understanding many financial crises. Why did the "Roaring 20s" roar? Was the boom in equities a "bubble"? What caused the sudden reversal in the fall of...

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 put the spotlight on the problem of too-big-to-fail (TBTF). The research conducted in this context has, however, generally focused on the econometric aspect and the contribution of the TBTF doctrine to the financial crisis of 2007-2009, while the economic...

This paper attempts a cursory synthesis of common narratives used to explain the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the only financial institution that was not bailed out during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. As such the paper explores justifications for Lehman’s demise such as Lehman was not too...

This paper studies the US equity market during the COVID-19 period in the first half of 2020. There is a record rise, then a record fall in prices and then a record recovery. Throughout the period there was extreme volatility and much short term momentum with fear and greed alternating. The VIX...

The Great Depression is infamous for banking panics, which were a symptomatic of a phenomenon that scholars have labeled a contagion of fear. Using geocoded, microdata on bank distress, we develop metrics that illuminate the incidence of these events and how banks that remained in operation...

After the Latin American Debt Crisis of 1982, the official response worldwide turned to minimum capital standards to promote stable banking systems. Despite their existence, however, such standards have still not prevented periodic disruptions in the banking sectors of various countries. After...

The collapse of residential construction was a notable feature of the Great Depression in the USA. The housing slump did not simply follow the downward shifts in income: rather residential investment collapse helped to precipitate the Great Depression. By utilizing an augmented Tobin’s q model...

This paper examines the effects of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation's (RFC) loan and preferred stock programs on bank failure rates in Michigan during the period 1932-1934, which includes the important Michigan banking crisis of early 1933 and its aftermath. Using a new database on...

In the United States today, the system of financial regulation is complex and fragmented. Responsibility to regulate the financial services industry is split between about a dozen federal agencies, hundreds of state agencies, and numerous industry-sponsored self-governing associations....