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Who Can Tell Which Banks Will Fail?

Author

Listed:
  • Kristian Blickle
  • Markus Brunnermeier
  • Stephan Luck

Abstract

We study the run on the German banking system in 1931 to understand whether depositors anticipate which banks will fail in a major financial crisis. We find that deposits decline by around 20% during the run. There is an equal outflow of retail and nonfinancial wholesale deposits from both failing and surviving banks. In contrast, we find that interbank deposits almost exclusively decline for failing banks. Our evidence suggests that banks are better informed about which fellow banks will fail. In turn, banks being informed allows the interbank market to continue providing liquidity even during times of severe financial distress.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristian Blickle & Markus Brunnermeier & Stephan Luck, 2024. "Who Can Tell Which Banks Will Fail?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(9), pages 2685-2731.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:37:y:2024:i:9:p:2685-2731.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhae020
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    Cited by:

    1. Fascione, Luisa & Oosterhek, Koen & Scheubel, Beatrice & Stracca, Livio & Wildmann, Nadya, 2024. "Keep calm, but watch the outliers: deposit flows in recent crisis episodes and beyond," Occasional Paper Series 361, European Central Bank.
    2. Maximilian Grimm, 2024. "The Effect of Monetary Policy on Systemic Bank Funding Stability," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 341, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    3. Marco Cipriani & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Anna Kovner, 2024. "Tracing Bank Runs in Real Time," Staff Reports 1104, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    4. Marcella Lucchetta, 2025. "Bank Heterogeneity and Crisis Migration: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Systemic Risk," Working Papers 2025: 05, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    5. Marcella Lucchetta, 2025. "Crisis-Proofing Heterogeneous Banks," Working Papers 2025: 08, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Acharya, Viral & Das, Abhiman & Kulkarni, Nirupama & Mishra, Prachi & Prabhala, Nagpurnanand, 2022. "Deposit and Credit Reallocation in a Banking Panic: The Role of State-Owned Banks," CEPR Discussion Papers 17621, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Boyle, Glenn & Stover, Roger & Tiwana, Amrit & Zhylyevskyy, Oleksandr, 2022. "Depositor responses to a banking crisis: Are finance professionals special?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 182-195.
    8. Kristian S. Blickle & Cecilia Parlatore & Anthony Saunders, 2025. "Deposit Specialization and Lending Behavior," Staff Reports 1175, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    9. Sergio A. Correia & Stephan Luck & Emil Verner, 2024. "Failing Banks," NBER Working Papers 32907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Gao, Haoyu & Li, Jinxuan & Wen, Huiyu, 2023. "Bank funding costs during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-

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