We examine the evolution of real per capita GDP around 100 systemic banking crises. Part of the costs of these crises owes to the protracted nature of recovery. On average, it takes about eight years to reach the pre-crisis level of income; the median is about 6 ½ years. Five to six years after...

In this paper, we construct a simple model designed to capture four widely held views about financial crises: [1] Interconnectedness among financial institutions (banks) can play a major role in precipitating systemic financial crises. [2] It does so by introducing loan-portfolio opacity,...

During the recovery from the recent crisis, the general role of lending in economic growth, and particularly in the recovery from financial crises, has become an important issue. In this paper, we review the major differences between creditless recovery episodes and recoveries accompanied by...