IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/16054.html

The Real Effects of Bank Runs. Evidence from the French Great Depression (1930-1931)

Author

Listed:
  • Monnet, Eric
  • ,
  • Ungaro, Stefano

Abstract

We investigate the causal impact of bank runs by exploiting a key feature of the French Great Depression (1930-1931) that created exogenous geographical variations in the withdrawals of bank deposits. Unregulated commercial banks coexisted with government-backed saving institutions (Caisses d’épargne). During the crisis, depositors who had an account in Caisses d’épargne were more likely to withdraw from banks. Pre-crisis density of Caisses d’épargne accounts was unrelated to economic and bank characteristics. Using this variable as an instrument, we find that a 1% decrease in bank branches reduced aggregate income by 1%. Our identification highlights how a shift of deposits towards safer institutions can affect financial fragility. It holds lessons for current financial regulation and the design of central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Suggested Citation

  • Monnet, Eric & , & Ungaro, Stefano, 2021. "The Real Effects of Bank Runs. Evidence from the French Great Depression (1930-1931)," CEPR Discussion Papers 16054, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP16054
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Grodecka-Messi, Anna & Zhang, Xin, 2023. "Private bank money vs central bank money: A historical lesson for CBDC introduction," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Dionysopoulos, Lambis & Marra, Miriam & Urquhart, Andrew, 2024. "Central bank digital currencies: A critical review," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. Kris James Mitchener & Eric Monnet, 2023. "Connected Lending of Last Resort," NBER Working Papers 30869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Henri Fraisse & Christophe Hurlin, 2024. "Modèles internes des banques pour le calcul du capital réglementaire (IRB) et intelligence artificielle," Débats Economiques et financiers 44, Banque de France.
    7. Cyril Pouvelle., 2022. "An Analysis of Financial Conglomerate Resilience: A Perspective on bancassurance in France [Une analyse de la résilience des conglomérats financiers : Une perspective sur la bancassurance en France," Débats Economiques et financiers 39, Banque de France.
    8. Giacomo Gabbuti, 2023. "Fiscal Sources and the Distribution of Income in Italy: The Italian Historical Taxpayers' Database," LEM Papers Series 2023/24, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    9. Toni Ahner & Katrin Assenmacher & Peter Hoffmann & Agnese Leonello & Cyril Monnet & Davide Porcellacchia, 2024. "The Economics of Central Bank Digital Currency," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 20(4), pages 221-274, October.
    10. Shalva Mkhatrishvili & Wim Boonstra, 2022. "What we know on Central Bank Digital Currencies (so far)," NBG Working Papers 01/2022, National Bank of Georgia.
    11. Cyril Monnet & Hyun Song Shin & Jon Frost & Leonardo Gambacorta & Raphael Auer & Tara Rice, 2022. "Central Bank Digital Currencies: Motives, Economic Implications, and the Research Frontier," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 697-721, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • N14 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.