To end a financial crisis, the central bank is to lend freely, against good collateral, at a high rate, according to Bagehot's Rule. We argue that in theory and in practice there is a missing ingredient to Bagehot's Rule: secrecy. Re-creating confidence requires that the central bank lend in...

Credit Booms are not rare; some end in a crisis (bad booms) while others do not (good booms). We document that credit booms start with an increase in productivity growth, which subsequently falls faster during bad booms. We develop a model in which crises happen when credit booms change to an...

"After the financial crisis of 2007-2008, analysts continue to question the security of banking sectors in nations in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Why do such crises recur? What is it about the accumulation of bank debt that potentially jeopardizes national and global banking...

We show that political booms, measured by the rise in governments' popularity, predict financial crises above and beyond other better-known early warning indicators, such as credit booms. This predictive power, however, only holds in emerging economies. We show that governments in emerging...