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Arresting Banking Panics: Fed Liquidity Provision and the Forgotten Panic of 1929

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Carlson
  • Kris James Mitchener
  • Gary Richardson
Abstract
Scholars differ on whether Federal Reserve intervention mitigated banking panics during the Great Depression and in recent years. The last panic prior to the Depression sheds light on this debate. In April 1929, a fruit fly infestation in Florida forced the U.S. government to quarantine fruit shipments from the state and destroy infested groves. When Congress recessed in June without approving compensation for farmers, depositors in citrus growing regions began withdrawing deposits from banks, culminating in runs on institutions in the financial center of Tampa and surrounding cities. Using archival evidence, we describe how the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta halted the spread of the panic by rushing currency to member banks. Analysis based on a new micro-level database of commercial banks in Florida shows that bank failures would have been twice as high without the Fed's intervention. The policy response of the Fed ended the panic and suggests that similar interventions by the Fed may have been useful during the Great Depression, even in cases where banks faced questions about their solvency.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Carlson & Kris James Mitchener & Gary Richardson, 2010. "Arresting Banking Panics: Fed Liquidity Provision and the Forgotten Panic of 1929," NBER Working Papers 16460, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16460
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Tetsuji Okazaki & Michiru Sawada, 2012. "Interbank networks in prewar Japan: structure and implications," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 21(2), pages 463-506, April.
    2. Rustam Jamilov & Tobias König & Karsten Müller & Farzad Saidi, 2024. "Two Centuries of Systemic Bank Runs," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_589, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    3. Jonathan D. Rose, 2014. "The Prolonged Resolution of Troubled Real Estate Lenders during the 1930s," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 245-284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Eugene N. White, 2015. "Protecting Financial Stability in the Aftermath of World War I: The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Dissenting Policy," NBER Working Papers 21341, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jonathan D. Rose, 2012. "The prolonged resolution of troubled real estate lenders during the 1930s," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-31, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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