Fragile by Design : : The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit / / Stephen H. Haber, Charles W. Calomiris.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Calomiris, Charles W.,; Haber, Stephen H.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2014]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Series: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World ; 48
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (584 p.) :; 30 line illus.

Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries-but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households.Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues.Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Section One. No Banks without States, and No States without Banks -- 1. If Stable and Efficient Banks Are Such a Good Idea, Why Are They So Rare? -- 2. The Game of Bank Bargains -- 3. Tools of Conquest and Survival Why States Need Banks -- 4. Privileges with Burdens War, Empire, and the Monopoly Structure of English Banking -- 5. Banks and Democracy -- Section Two. The Cost of Banker-Populist Alliances The United States versus Canada -- 6. Crippled by Populism -- 7. The New U.S. Bank Bargain -- 8. Leverage, Regulatory Failure, and the Subprime Crisis -- 9. Durable Partners -- Section Three. Authoritarianism, Democratic Transitions, and the Game of Bank Bargains -- 10. Mexico -- 11. When Autocracy Fails -- 12. Inflation Machines -- 13. The Democratic Consequences of Inflation-Tax Banking in Brazil -- Section Four. Going beyond Structural Narratives -- 14. Traveling to Other Places -- 15. Reality Is a Plague on Many Houses -- References -- Index