Fragile by design : the political origins of banking crises and scarce credit / Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen H. Haber.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 507-548) and index.

If stable and efficient banks are such a good idea, why are they so rare? -- The game of bank bargains -- Tools of conquest and survival : why states need banks -- Privileges with burdens : war, empire, and the monopoly structure of English banking -- Banks and democracy : Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- Crippled by populism : U.S. banking from colonial times to 1990 -- The new U.S. bank bargain : megabanks, urban activists, and the erosion of mortgage standards -- Leverage, regulatory failure, and the subprime crisis -- Durable partners : politics and banking in Canada -- Mexico : chaos makes cronyism look good -- When autocracy fails : banking and politics in Mexico since 1982 -- Inflation machines : banking and state finance in imperial Brazil -- The democratic consequences of inflation-tax banking in Brazil -- Traveling to other places : is our sample representative? -- Reality is a plague on many houses.