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State-Sponsored Insurance of Bank Deposits in the United States, 1907–1929

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Eugene Nelson White
Eugene Nelson White
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
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Extract

Before the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1933, several states established deposit guarantee funds. The key factor influencing the adoption of deposit insurance by a state was the structure of its banking industry. In states where small unit banks were dominant, there was strong support for guarantee funds to protect deposits; in other states there was more interest in branch banking. The failure to design the guarantee funds in accordance with sound principles of insurance brought about their demise and led to increased branch banking.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 537 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1981

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References

An early draft of this paper was presented to the 1980 Cliometrics Conference at the University of Chicago. The author would like to acknowledge the valuable comments received there and from Larry Neal, Jeremy Atack, Tom Ulen. Hugh Rockoff, and two anonymous referees.Google Scholar

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