Am a bank of america is assentially to the amalgamation of 37 different banks in the 19 90. Total c r a dings only eight point eight billion dollars. Lot of agreements between activist groups ind banks, but very little lending, beginning in 92. Banks want omerge in order to get approval fror mergers and i think from the vantage point of today, we don't have a sense of how rapid fire and dramatic these mergers are.
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.