Bank failures are widely feared because depositors may suffer losses in the value of their deposits and restrictions in access to their deposits. In the United States, this is not true for insured deposits, which are made fully available to depositors almost immediately. But both problems may...

In August 2007 the United Kingdom experienced its first bank run in over 140 years. Although Northern Rock was not a particularly large bank (it was at the time ranked 7th in terms of assets) it was nevertheless a significant retail bank and a substantial mortgage lender. In fact, ten years...