This article explains the roots of financial crises in one of the oldest and most fundamental problems of commercial law: hidden leverage. Common law courts wrestled with this problem for centuries and developed a time - tested solution: the doctrine of secret liens. If the debtor becomes...

This paper shows that the impact of credit supply on economic activity is conditioned by banks' equity distribution. Using a myriad of publicly available data on bank's balance sheet, and mortgage and business lending from the United States, we offer novel empirical evidence on how changes in...

This article explains the roots of financial crises in one of the oldest and most fundamental problems of commercial law: hidden leverage. Common law courts wrestled with this problem for centuries and developed a time – tested solution: the doctrine of secret liens. If the debtor becomes...

Financial crises are common within the modern financial system. The world has witnessed several significant financial crises since the '80s. In most cases, these crises have always led to an economic crisis that causes significant turbulence and severe sufferings for people around the world. The...

This study, empirically, investigates the determinants of bank profitability. Overall, I find that the Basel capital regime had no significant effect on bank profitability. This result is significant because it lends support to the view that modified Basel accord in different countries might be...

When and why do banking crises occur? Banking crises properly defined consist either of panics or waves of costly bank failures. These phenomena were rare historically compared to the present. A historical analysis of the two phenomena (panics and waves of failures) reveals that they do not...

This paper is aimed to address when and why do banking crises occur, and whether financial reforms in reaction to crises are generally beneficial. It is argued that banking crises properly defined consist either of panics or of waves of costly bank failures, and they do not necessarily coincide....

Lack of access to finance is often cited as a key reason why poor people remain poor. This paper uses data on the Indian rural branch expansion program to provide empirial evidence on this issue. Between 1977 and 1990, the Indian Central Bank mandated that a commercial bank can open a branch in...

This study, empirically, investigates the determinants of bank profitability. After including the regulatory variable into the model, I find no significant difference in bank profitability during pre-and post-capital regulation regime. Second, after employing NIM and ROA profitability metrics, I...

In the Newfoundland Bank Crash of 1894, the commercial banks in a duopolistic loan market both went under simultaneously. The banking system was “free”, as central bank, deposit insurance, and lender of last resort were all absent. The objective of this study is to shed light on our...