Theorien über Schalterstürme und geeignete Gegenmaßnahmen: Eine kritische Analyse

Abstract

Bank-Run Theories and Appropriate Defences: A Critical Analysis

Runs on banks play a key role in the reasons given in Justification of the way in which the credit industry is regulated at present. The opposite view is to be found in the literature on free banking which maintains that runs on banks represent a phenomenon caused by regulation in the first place. It is to be regretted that the formal analysis of models capable of explaining runs on banks still leaves much to be desired. The leading model is the one developed by Diamond and Dybvig. It is exemplified that the validity of the analysis presented by those two authors suffers from a major deficiency. The most popular conclusion derived from this analysis, i.e. the view that deposit insurance schemes in particular represent the optimal approach, cannot be maintained. Wallace attempted to remedy this deficiency and, in doing so, pushed the analysis of the structure proposed by Diamond and Dybvig an essential step ahead. Wallace’s findings suggest that a partial stop of payments combined with the threat of a complete stop of payments in the event of deposit withdrawals in excess of a specified upper limit would suffice for preventing bank runs from coming about. This conclusion is corroborated by a number of arguments repeatedly mentioned in the literature on free banking. The most important contribution of this paper is proof to the effect that just a slight change in the model analyzed by Wallace would suffice to make runs on banks possible again. His conclusion that the threat of payment stops would prevent such runs from coming about is little robust therefor. This complies with the experience gained so far which suggests that neither threats nor actual payment stops have been sufficient for preventing runs on banks