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Too Big to Fail before the Fed

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  • Gary Gorton
  • Ellis W. Tallman

Abstract

"Too-big-to-fail" is consistent with policies followed by private bank clearing houses during financial crises in the U.S. National Banking Era prior to the existence of the Federal Reserve System. Private bank clearing houses provided emergency lending to member banks during financial crises. This behavior strongly suggests that "too-big-to-fail" is not the problem causing modern crises. Rather it is a reasonable response to the threat posed to large banks by the vulnerability of short-term debt to runs.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Gorton & Ellis W. Tallman, 2016. "Too Big to Fail before the Fed," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 528-532, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:106:y:2016:i:5:p:528-32
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161043
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gorton, Gary, 1985. "Clearinghouses and the Origin of Central Banking in the United States," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 277-283, June.
    2. Javed I. Ahmed & Christopher Anderson & Rebecca Zarutskie, 2015. "Are the Borrowing Costs of Large Financial Firms Unusual?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Gary Gorton & Ellis W. Tallman, 2016. "How Did Pre-Fed Banking Panics End?," Working Papers (Old Series) 1603, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    4. 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.
    5. Evrensel, Ayse Y., 2008. "Banking crisis and financial structure: A survival-time analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 589-602, October.
    6. Timberlake, Richard H, Jr, 1984. "The Central Banking Role of Clearinghouse Associations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(1), pages 1-15, February.
    7. Jon R. Moen & Ellis W. Tallman, 2013. "Close but not a central bank: The New York Clearing House and issues of clearing house loan certificates," Working Papers (Old Series) 1308, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gary Gorton & Ellis W. Tallman, 2016. "How Did Pre-Fed Banking Panics End?," NBER Working Papers 22036, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Naoise McDonagh, 2021. "The evolution of bank bailout policy: two centuries of variation, selection and retention," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 1065-1088, July.
    3. Carlson, Mark & Rose, Jonathan, 2019. "The incentives of large sophisticated creditors to run on a too big to fail financial institution," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 91-104.
    4. Bui, Dien Giau & Hasan, Iftekhar & Lin, Chih-Yung & Nguyen, Hong Thoa, 2023. "Short-selling threats and bank risk-taking: Evidence from the financial crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    5. Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2022. "Too Big to Fail and Moral Hazard: Evidence from an Epoch of Unregulated Commercial Banking," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(4), pages 808-830, December.
    6. Chmielewski Tomasz & Sławiński Andrzej, 2019. "Lessons from TARGET2 imbalances: The case for the ECB being a lender of last resort," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 5(2), pages 48-63, June.
    7. Larry D. Wall, 2021. "So Far, So Good: Government Insurance of Financial Sector Tail Risk," Policy Hub, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 2021(13), November.
    8. Chen, Guojin & Liu, Yanzhen & Zhang, Yu, 2021. "Systemic risk measures and distribution forecasting of macroeconomic shocks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 178-196.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • 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
    • N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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