The Lender of Last Resort and the Run on the Savings and Loans

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Speculative runs on asset price fixing schemes are most often attributed either to an inexplicable mass hysteria or to a sudden, unpredictable random disturbance. Such attribution places runs and panics outside of the realm of scientific inquiry. Alternatively, in this paper I define the notion of a run as a discontinuous shift in portfolio asset holdings brought about by a belief in the end of the price fixing regime. I also argue that runs are foreseeable events and employ the current difficulties of S & L's to serve as an extended example which emphasizes such predictability.

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