Are Branch Banks Better Survivors? Evidence from the Depression Era

Mark Carlson

Economic Inquiry, 2004, vol. 42, issue 1, 111-126

Abstract: It is widely argued in the literature on the Great Depression that the prevalence of unit banks aggravated the problem of financial instability that afflicted the United States. This article tests the theory that more widespread branch banking would have reduced financial turbulence by examining the survival of individual branch and unit banks. Results indicate that instead of being more likely to survive, branch banks were more likely to fail. Further investigation suggests that this higher failure rate occurred because branch banks systematically held riskier portfolios than unit banks. (JEL G21, G28, N22) Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

JEL-codes: G21 G28 N22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ei/cbh048 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Are branch banks better survivors? Evidence from the Depression era (2001)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:ecinqu:v:42:y:2004:i:1:p:111-126

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Preston McAfee

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().