Debates, plans and interventions to overcome the 1931 banking crisis in Romania and Bulgaria

In summer 1931, the Austro-German banking crisis propagated in Romania and Bulgaria. In the Romanian case, the management of the crisis confronted three types of protagonists-politics, bankers and central bankers-and positions about the relevant attitude to adopt, in to avoid or not the Marmorosch Blank Bank bankruptcy. In Bulgaria, the management of the crisis was more consensual. The intervention of the Bulgarian National Bank allowed to refund the more important banks, while other 34 were declared bankrupt and smaller ones silently disappear. One of the largest banks in Bulgaria, Credit Bank, has been rescued. Archive documents, reports of participants and comments from contemporaries, emphasize the different conceptions of the function of lender of last resort by the different 1 The authors would like to acknowledge Hans-Michael Trautwein whose comments and remarks have helped to improve the quality of this text. They are also indebted to Valentin Fuscan and to the participants of the Conference