This paper tests whether deposit insurance promotes financial depth by influencing depositor behavior. To do so, we rely on two schemes operating in the U.S. during the 1920s: the Postal Savings System and the deposit insurance schemes that some states had adopted. We exploit the discontinuity...

Using a newly discovered dataset of U.S. bank suspensions from 1921 to 1929, we discovered that banking panics were more common in the 1920s than had been believed. Besides identifying panics, we investigate their determinants, finding that local banking panics were more likely when fundamental...

This paper tests whether deposit insurance promotes financial depth by influencing depositor behavior. To do so, we rely on two schemes operating in the U.S. during the 1920s: the Postal Savings System and the deposit insurance schemes that some states had adopted. We exploit the discontinuity...

Part I of this article appeared in the previous issue of the Banking Review, and explored the period immediately following the opening of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) in August 1989 through 1990. Part II completes the legislative history of the RTC. Congress's inability to pass a...

Policymaking is forever a work in progress, balancing the concerns of the regulated with the interests of society, and making adjustments as new imbalances inevitably arise. Good policy begins with good supporting legislation, and the process of making these laws leaves behind a rich trail of...

This article first explores some of the more significant characteristics of community banking, examining the importance of community banks in small-business lending in terms of their ability to handle quot;softquot; data, their tendency to rely on retail deposits for funding, and their emphasis...