Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T22:07:42.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The U.S. Banking System From a Northern Exposure: Stability versus Efficiency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Michael D. Bordo ,
Hugh Rockoff  and
Angela Redish
Michael D. Bordo
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
Hugh Rockoff
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T1Y2, Canada.
Angela Redish
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article asks whether the vaunted comparative stability of the Canadian banking system has been purchased at the cost of creating an oligopoly. We assembled a data set that compares bank failures, lending rates, interest paid on deposits, and related variables over the period 1920 to 1980. Our principal findings are (1) interest rates paid on deposits were generally higher in Canada; (2) interest income received on securities was generally slightly higher in Canada; (3) interest rates charged on loans were generally quite similar; and (4) net rates of return to equity were generally higher in Canada than in the United States.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 325 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bernanke, Benjamin, “Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression,” American Economic Review, 73 (06 1983), pp. 257–71.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, Howard, and Rockoff, Hugh, “Regional Interest Rates in Antebellum America,” in Goldin, Claudia and Rockoff, Hugh, eds., Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel (Chicago, 1992), pp. 159–87.Google Scholar
Boyd, John H., and Graham, Stanley L., “Investigating the Banking Consolidation Trend.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review, 15 (Spring 1991), pp. 3–14.Google Scholar
Busche, Kelly, and Chant, John F., “The Imminent Failure Hypothesis in Canadian Banking” (Photocopy, Simon Fraser University, 1992).Google Scholar
Cagan, Phillip, Determinants and Effects of Changes in the Stock of Money, 1875–1960 (New York, 1965).Google Scholar
Calomiris, Charles, “Regulation, Industrial Structure, and Instability in U.S. Banking: An Historical Perspective,” in Michael, Klausner and White, Lawrence J., eds., Structural Change in Banking (Homewood, IL, 1992), pp. 19–130.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance, “The Investment Market, 1870–1914: Evolution of a National Market,”this Journal, 25 (Sept. 1965), pp. 355–99.Google Scholar
Drummond, Ian, “Why Canadian Banks Did Not Collapse in the 1930's,” in James, Harold, Lindgren, Hakan, and Teichova, Alice, eds., The Role of Banks in the Interwar Economy (New York, 1991), pp. 232–50.Google Scholar
Haubrich, Joseph G., “Nonmonetary Effects of Financial Crises: Lessons From the Great Depression in Canada,” Journal of Monetary Economics, 25 (03 1990), pp. 223–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, John, “The Development of the National Money Market,” this Journal, 36 (12 1976), pp. 878–97.Google Scholar
Keehn, Richard, “Market Power and Bank Lending: Some Evidence from Wisconsin, 1870–1900,” this Journal, 35 (09 1975), pp. 591–620.Google Scholar
Kryzanowski, Lawrence, and Roberts, Gordon, “Canadian Banking Solvency, 1922–1940,” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 25 (08 1993), pp. 361–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, Alli, and Neave, Edwin H., “Competition and Contestability in Canada's Financial System: Empirical Results,” Canadian Journal of Economics, 22 (08 1989), pp. 576–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Driscoll, Gerald P., “Deposit Insurance in Theory and Practice,” in England, Catherine and Huertas, Thomas, eds., The Financial Services Revolution (Boston 1988), pp. 165–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Report of the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance [Porter Commission] (Ottawa, 1964).Google Scholar
Shaffer, Sherrill, “A Test of Competition in Canadian Banking,” Journal of Money Credit and Banking, 25 (02 1993), pp. 49–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shearer, Ronald A., “The Canadian Financial System,” in Eatwell, John, Millgate, Murray, and Newman, Peter, eds., New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance (London, 1992), pp. 274–76.Google Scholar
Shearer, Ronald A., Chant, John F., and Bond, David E., The Economics of the Canadian Financial System: Theory, Policy and Institutions (2nd edn, Scarborough, Ontario, 1984).Google Scholar
Smiley, Gene, “Interest Rate Movements in the United States, 1888–1913,” this Journal, 35 (09 1975), pp. 591–620.Google Scholar
Sylla, Richard, “Federal Policy, Banking Market Structure, and Capital Mobilization in the United States, 1863–1913,” this Journal, 29 (12 1969), pp. 657–86.Google Scholar
White, Eugene N., The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900–1929 (Princeton, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar