IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jbwige/v52y2011i1p45-67n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

140 Years of Financial Crises: Old Dog, New Tricks

Author

Listed:
  • Schularick Moritz

    (Freie Universität Berlin, John-F.-Kennedy Institut für Nordamerikastudien, A, Berlin, Deutschland)

Abstract

Looking at 140 years of modern financial history, this paper analyses what is new and what is old about the 2008/09 financial crisis. I identify a number of traits common to most financial crises in 19th and 20th century economic history. First, systemic banking crises are typically credit booms gone bust, i.e. they are preceded by periods of marked expansions of the balance sheets of financial intermediaries. Second, despite much more active central bank policies, financial crises have remained costly for the real economy. Third, increases of public debt in the aftermath of banking crisis are nothing new, but there are some indications that the costs have increased over time. However, this time was also different in three respects: first, the dependence of the financial system on wholesale funding markets is a historically new phenomenon with major implications for financial stability and monetary policy. Second, the crisis was closely linked to the emergence of global imbalances and unprecedented reserve accumulation. Third, the global credit boom since the late 1970s did not feed into higher investment rates, which raises questions about the economic benefits of the strong increase in financial intensity in recent years.

Suggested Citation

  • Schularick Moritz, 2011. "140 Years of Financial Crises: Old Dog, New Tricks," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 52(1), pages 45-67, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jbwige:v:52:y:2011:i:1:p:45-67:n:3
    DOI: 10.1524/jbwg.2011.0003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1524/jbwg.2011.0003
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1524/jbwg.2011.0003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Markus Hertrich, 2019. "A Novel Housing Price Misalignment Indicator for Germany," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(4), pages 759-794, November.
    2. Schularick, Moritz, 2012. "Public debt and financial crises in the twentieth century," Discussion Papers 2012/1, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    3. Wixforth, Harald, 2018. "Bankiers in der Krise: Verletzen sie ihre Regeln und Normen?," IBF Paper Series 04-18, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.
    4. Grjebine, Thomas & Szczerbowicz, Urszula & Tripier, Fabien, 2018. "Corporate debt structure and economic recoveries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 77-100.
    5. repec:zbw:bofitp:2012_026 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Andrea Amaral & Margarida Abreu & Victor Mendes, 2014. "The Spatial Probit Model – An Application to the Study of Banking Crises at the End of the 90’s," CEFAGE-UE Working Papers 2014_05, University of Evora, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal).
    7. Feldkircher, Martin, 2014. "The determinants of vulnerability to the global financial crisis 2008 to 2009: Credit growth and other sources of risk," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 19-49.

    More about this item

    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:bpj:jbwige:v:52:y:2011:i:1:p:45-67:n:3. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.