The vast majority of case law establishes that, in the absence of a specific agreement to the contrary, the deposit of funds into a bank creates a debtor-creditor relationship, pursuant to which depositors are deemed creditors of their respective banks. In effect, depositors loan their deposits...

The definition of inequality is complicated and difficult to assess, and there are various means by which it is evaluated. This study uses the now well-accepted measures of body mass, height, and weight to assess inequality’s relationship with current and cumulative net nutrition. Taller...

Using new quarterly U.S. data for the past 120 years, I show that sudden reversals in equity and credit market sentiment approximated by several measures of corporate securities issuance are highly predictive of banking crises and recessions. Deviations in equity issuance from historical...

Does the concept of General Purpose Technologies help explain periods of faster and slower productivity advance in economies? The paper develops a new comparative data set on the usage of electricity in the manufacturing sectors of the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Japan and proceeds to...

As a result of legal restrictions on branch banking, an extensive interbank system developed in the United States during the 19th century to facilitate interregional payments and flows of liquidity and credit. Vast sums moved through the interbank system to meet seasonal and other demands, but...

No. We document two empirical facts for the U.S. life insurance sector during the 1918–19 Influenza pandemic. First, we find no significant differences among U.S. insurers’ profitability after 1918. Second, there were fewer insurers in distress after the pandemic outbreak. Using synthetic...

Canada is one of the richest countries in the world today. It stands above most countries in the Americas. It is also noticeably poorer than its American neighbour in spite of considerable geographic similarities. These two facts were true as early as the 17th century. Why? An understanding of...

This paper explores the hypothesis that the sources of economic and financial crises differ from non-crisis business cycle fluctuations. We employ Markov-switching Bayesian vector autoregressions (MS-BVARs) to gather evidence about the hypothesis on a long annual U.S. sample running from 1890 to...

The Lehman / Barclay’s / Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index dates to the 1970s. Historical back tests of investment strategies and outcomes that extend past 1973 have had to use either long bonds or short Treasuries. In terms of capturing returns over a complete market cycle, both long and short...

As a result of legal restrictions on branch banking, an extensive interbank system developed in the United States during the 19th century to facilitate interregional payments and flows of liquidity and credit. Vast sums moved through the interbank system to meet seasonal and other demands, but...