We have this obsession with never having any kind of crisis. And that's what we've done i tho exfield with our financial system, we've tried to find it. Patrick kennedy: Do you think federalism is not always functioned as a check and balance the way we think of it? John MacIntosh: I don't think there is a consensus answer to that question because the question's never been framed quite the way you put it.
Charles Calomiris of Columbia University and Stephen Haber of Stanford University, co-authors of Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit, talk with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about their book. The conversation focuses on how politics and economics interact to give some countries such as Canada a remarkably stable financial system while others such as the United States have a much less stable system. The two authors discuss the political forces that explain the persistence of seemingly bad financial regulation. The conversation includes a discussion of the financial crisis of 2008.