Does too much competition in banking hurt society? What policies can best protect and stabilize banking without stifling it? Institutional responses to such questions have evolved over time, from interventionist regulatory control after the Great Depression to the liberalization policies that...

Main description: Commercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions. When they work well, we hardly notice; when they do not, we rail against them. What are the historical forces that have shaped the modern banking system? In Unsettled Account, Richard Grossman takes...

Twentieth-century Europe was an intense laboratory of capitalist experimentation. Confronted with economic booms and crises, technological revolutions, and economic globalization, Western Europe's governments constantly explored alternative ways of managing domestic economic systems and...

Main description: Almost every country in the world has sophisticated systems to prevent banking crises. Yet such crises--and the massive financial and social damage they can cause--remain common throughout the world. Does deposit insurance encourage depositors and bankers to take excessive...