Both the Great Depression and the Great Recession followed systemic banking crises and preceded unusually weak and slow recoveries. The prior literature has identified monetary, household demand, and credit effects as contributors to the severe and prolonged downturns. This paper studies a...

Many popular and academic commentators identify deregulation as a cause of the 2007-08 financial crisis. Some argue that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) removed barriers to risk-taking by commercial and investment banks, while...