Wildcat Bankers or Political Failure? The Irish Financial Pantomime, 1797-1826

Seán Kenny () and John Turner ()
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Seán Kenny: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden

No 176, Lund Papers in Economic History from Lund University, Department of Economic History

Abstract: Using a new biography of banks, we examine the stability of Irish banking from 1797 to 1826 by constructing a failure rate series. We find that the ultimate cause of the frequent and severe banking crises was the crisis-prone structure of the banking system, which was designed to benefit the political elite. There is little evidence to suggest that wildcat banking or the failure of the Bank of Ireland to act as a lender of last resort were to blame. We also find that the main economic effect of the episodic crises was major diminutions in the money supply.

Keywords: banking crisis; bank failure; Ireland; partnership; wildcat banking; political economy of banking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E42 G21 N13 N23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68 pages
Date: 2018-06-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-knm and nep-mac
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Related works:
Journal Article: Wildcat bankers or political failure? The Irish financial pantomime, 1797–1826 (2020)
Working Paper: Wildcat bankers or political failure? The Irish financial pantomime, 1797-1826 (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0176

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