Bank Executive Experience in a Financial Crisis

This paper evaluates whether bank executive experience can influence bank outcomes during financial crises. Some bank presidents in New York City possessed experience as a bank president at the same bank in New York during the previous banking crisis. The evidence from four crises between 1884 and 1907 suggests that individual bank deposit losses at the same institution appear uncorrelated across adjacent crises, so bank performance does not persist across crises. Further, the retention of an experienced bank president does not mitigate deposit losses in a subsequent financial crisis.