There were some politicians going back a we'll call them the agrarian populist itians, william jennings bryan. Henry steegele was and heghie long were th politicians in the thirties that were cut from that same cloth. Their constituents were especially their most important supporters, landowners. So why did this populace agrarian coalition all part alternately? What was his going on there? Do we know?
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.