TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rajan,Raghuram
AU  - Ramcharan,Rodney
TI  - The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s.
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18027
PY  - 2012
Y2  - April 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18027
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18027.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Raghuram Rajan
Booth School of Business
University of Chicago
5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-4437
Fax: 773/702-0458
E-Mail: raghuram.rajan@ChicagoBooth.edu

Rodney Ramcharan
Federal Reserve Board
Washington DC
Tel: 202-912-7851 
Fax: 202-452-5295
E-Mail: rodney.ramcharan@frb.gov
AB  - Does credit availability exacerbate asset price inflation? What channels could it work through? What are the long run consequences? In this paper we address these questions by examining the farm land price boom (and bust) in the United States that preceded the Great Depression. We find that credit availability likely had a direct effect on inflating land prices. Credit availability may have also amplified the relationship between the perceived improvement in fundamentals and land prices. When the perceived fundamentals soured, however, areas with higher ex ante credit availability suffered a greater fall in land prices, and experienced higher bank failure rates. Land prices stayed low for a number of decades after the bust in areas that had higher credit availability, suggesting that the effects of booms and busts induced by credit availability might be persistent. We draw lessons for regulatory policy.
ER  -