TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kane,Edward J.
AU  - Rice,Tara
TI  - Bank Runs and Banking Policies: Lessons for African Policymakers
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8003
PY  - 2000
Y2  - November 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8003
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8003.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward J. Kane
2325 E Calle Los Altos
Tucson, AZ 85718
Tel: 520-299-5066
E-Mail: edward.kane@bc.edu

Tara Rice
20th and C Streets NW
Washington DC 20551
E-Mail: tara.n.rice@frb.gov
AB  - This paper documents and explains the near-permanent banking stress African countries have experienced during the last 20 years.  The central hypothesis is that banking stress comes predominantly from unbooked losses and that the level of unbooked losses a banking system can accumulate depends on its information environment and on the effectiveness of government efforts to supervise and guarantee bank solvency.  African depositors face high costs for mitigating the loss exposures that banks and regulators impose on them and African regulators have not been made accountable for these costs.  We present evidence that over 1980-99 the average length of time an African banking system spent in crisis increased with the level of government corruption.
ER  -