Stability in the Financial System

The S&L crisis of the 1990s has given many a reason to review the events which led to a (in many ways) similar banking crisis sixty years ago, and the subsequent legislation of the Emergency Banking Act, the Banking Act of 1933, the Banking Act of 1935, and other related legislation. The reconstituted financial structure produced the longest period of financial stability in the US history, lasting one-half of a century. The book has two goals: provide an understanding of the reasons the banking reforms enacted in the 1930s were so successful; and present a set of policy proposals which offer the institutional provisions for both the financing of the capital development of the economy, and a safe payments system.

The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College - Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - Stability in the US Financial System; D.B.Papadimitriou - The 1930s Financial Reforms in Historical Perspective; R.Sylla - Comments; D.C.Wheelock & R.S.Kroszner - The Great Deposit Insurance Debate; M.D.Flood - Supervision and the Great Deposit Insurance Debate; R.W.Nelson - The 'Chicago Plan' and New Deal Banking Reform; R.J.Phillips - The Political Economy of Financial Reform in the US and the UK; G.Garcia - The Limits of Prudential Supervision: Economic Problems, Institutional Failure and Competence; B.Shull - The Current State of Banking Reform; G.G.Kaufman - A Comparison of Proposals to Restructure the US Financial System; R.A.Gilbert - Designing a Regulatory Structure for the Next Sixty Years; C.England - Comment; L.R.Mote - The Changing World of Banking: Setting the Regulatory Agenda; J.R.Barth & R.D.Brumbaugh, Jr - Comment; G.A.Dymski - Narrow Banks: An Alternative Approach to Banking Reform; K.Spong - Community Development Banks; H.P.Minsky, D.B.Papadimitriou, R.J.Phillips & L.R.Wray - Finance and Its Reform: Beyond Laissez-Faire; G.Caprio, Jr & L.H.Summers - Comment; D.J.Mathieson - Index