IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2001-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are branch banks better survivors? Evidence from the Depression era

Author

Abstract

It is widely argued in the literature on the Great Depression that the prevalence of unit banks aggravated the problem of financial instability that afflicted the country. This paper tests the theory that more widespread branch banking would have reduced financial turbulence in the United States by examining the survival of individual branch and unit banks. Results indicate that instead of being more likely to survive, branch banks were more likely to fail. Further investigation suggests that this higher failure rate occurred because branch banks systematically held riskier portfolios than unit banks.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark A. Carlson, 2001. "Are branch banks better survivors? Evidence from the Depression era," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2001-51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200151/200151abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200151/200151pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coe, Patrick J, 2002. "Financial Crisis and the Great Depression: A Regime Switching Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(1), pages 76-93, February.
    2. Miron, Jeffrey A, 1986. "Financial Panics, the Seasonality of the Nominal Interest Rate, and theFounding of the Fed," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 125-140, March.
    3. Joseph P. Hughes & William W. Lang & Loretta J. Mester & Choon-Geol Moon, 1996. "Efficient banking under interstate branching," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), pages 1045-1075.
    4. Grossman, Richard S., 1994. "The Shoe That Didn't Drop: Explaining Banking Stability During the Great Depression," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 654-682, September.
    5. Charles W. Calomiris & Joseph R. Mason, 2000. "Causes of U.S. Bank Distress During the Depression," NBER Working Papers 7919, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Rebecca Demsetz & Philip E. Strahan, 1995. "Historical patterns and recent changes in the relationship between bank holding company size and risk," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 1(Jul), pages 13-26.
    7. Wicker,Elmus, 1996. "The Banking Panics of the Great Depression," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521562614.
    8. David C. Wheelock, 1995. "Regulation, market structure and the bank failures of the Great Depression," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Mar, pages 27-38.
    9. John Philip Wernette, 1932. "Branch Banking in California and Bank Failures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 46(2), pages 362-375.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kris James Mitchener, 2006. "Are Prudential Supervision and Regulation Pillars of Financial Stability? Evidence from the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 12074, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kris James Mitchener, 2004. "Bank Supervision, Regulation, and Instability During the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 10475, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Carlson, Mark & Mitchener, Kris James, 2006. "Branch Banking, Bank Competition, and Financial Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1293-1328, August.
    4. Charles Calomiris, 2009. "Banking Crises and the Rules of the Game," NBER Working Papers 15403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gorton, Gary & Huang, Lixin, 2006. "Bank panics and the endogeneity of central banking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1613-1629, October.
    6. Charles Calomiris, 2000. "Comment on Bordo and Kroszner," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 18(2), pages 173-177, December.
    7. Joseph Mason, 2001. "Do Lender of Last Resort Policies Matter? The Effects of Reconstruction Finance Corporation Assistance to Banks During the Great Depression," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 20(1), pages 77-95, September.
    8. Fratianni, Michele & Giri, Federico, 2017. "The tale of two great crises," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 5-31.
    9. Schnabel, Isabel, 2002. "The Great Banks` Depression - Deposit Withdrawals in the German Crisis of 1931," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 03-11, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    10. Richard S. Grossman & Christopher M. Meissner, 2010. "International aspects of the Great Depression and the crisis of 2007: similarities, differences, and lessons," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 318-338, Autumn.
    11. Carlson, Mark, 2005. "Causes of bank suspensions in the panic of 1893," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 56-80, January.
    12. Calomiris, Charles W. & Flandreau, Marc & Laeven, Luc, 2016. "Political foundations of the lender of last resort: A global historical narrative," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    13. Ly, Kim Cuong & Liu, Frank Hong & Opong, Kwaku, 2018. "Can parents protect their children? Risk comparison analysis between affiliates of multi- and single-bank holding companies," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-10.
    14. Francesca Carapella, 2015. "Banking panics and deflation in dynamic general equilibrium," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Charles Calomiris & Joseph R. Mason, 2003. "How to Restructure Failed Banking Systems: Lessons from the U.S. in the 1930's and Japan in the 1990's," NBER Working Papers 9624, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Sabri Boubaker & Duc Trung Do & Helmi Hammami & Kim Cuong Ly, 2022. "The role of bank affiliation in bank efficiency: a fuzzy multi-objective data envelopment analysis approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 311(2), pages 611-639, April.
    17. Colvin, Christopher L., 2015. "The past, present and future of banking history," QUCEH Working Paper Series 15-05, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    18. Dupont, Brandon, 2007. "Bank runs, information and contagion in the panic of 1893," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 411-431, July.
    19. Sanjiv R. Das & Kris James Mitchener & Angela Vossmeyer, 2022. "Bank Regulation, Network Topology, and Systemic Risk: Evidence from the Great Depression," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1261-1312, August.
    20. Breitenlechner, Max & Mathy, Gabriel P. & Scharler, Johann, 2021. "Decomposing the U.S. Great Depression: How important were loan supply shocks?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Branch banks; Financial crises;

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2001-51. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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.