This dissertation analyzes the emergence of the Austro-Hungarian Bank (OeUB) as a modern lender of last resort (LLR) between 1868 and 1914. In order to evaluate policy responses to specific periods of financial distress, an in-depth knowledge of the context and dynamics at hand is indispensable. Chapter I sets the groundwork for this dissertation. It shows that bank failures during the Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1873 followed mainly from the break-down of a large repo market on the Viennese stock exchange. Credit institutions granted repo loans against securities that turned into highly illiquid and depreciated collateral. Banks that were forced to sell repossessed collateral in response to heavy funding withdrawals had to write-off substantial portions of their repo portfolios and thus incurred heavy losses. This chapter reinterprets the Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1873 as a historical "run on repo". It is the first study to examine a historical repo market crisis using microdata. I use semi-parametric survival analysis as well as stratification techniques new to the literature on bank distress to identify the causes of bank failures. Bank failures in 1873 did not spring from a pure liquidity problem, nor did they derive from a simple solvency shock. The complex roots of bank distress in 1873 posed difficult questions for policy-makers who needed to decide whether and how to intervene. Although central banks may be first-best candidates for the role of a LLR, they can also face constraints which obviate an elastic supply of liquidity during crises. Some of these constraints may be ideational, institutional or technical. Others are driven by market characteristics: quantity rationing can be the result of asymmetric information problems in financial markets. In Chapter II, I study a historical experiment implemented to overcome the specter of a credit rationing LLR during the Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1873. I explore bank-level information on treatment by a LLR mechanism designed as a public-private partnership between the central bank and market players. Drawing on inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) to tease out the causal effect of liquidity support, I show that this unconventional LLR was effective in mitigating bank distress: it worked as a remedy for the under-provision of a good particularly desirable in times of crises central bank liquidity. No matter how successful it is in calming financial distress and independently of the concrete form it takes, the LLR always comes at a cost. Moral hazard is a central issue in the literature on last resort lending. In Chapter III, I provide a new explanation for how central banks dealt with moral hazard historically. I focus on one specific component of central banks' risk frameworks: credit limits for discount window customers. I argue that credit limits as operationalized by the Austro-Hungarian Bank (OeUB) after 1878 constituted the backbone of an early form of microprudential regulation that was designed to check moral hazard in normal times. Credit limits empowered the Austro-Hungarian Bank to enforce minimum liquidity and capital standards for its counterparties at the discount window. Rather than contradicting the tenet of free lending in times of distress, credit limits functioned as "contingent rules": enforced in normal times, limits were increased or lifted during liquidity crises perceived as exogenous. Moreover, even during crises, the Bank did not simply relax limits for all credit institutions: it differentiated between banks depending on their fundamentals prior to the crisis. Chapter III provides the first economic interpretation and empirical analysis of the credit limit frameworks employed by central banks in the past.

Cette thèse a pour objet d’analyser la performance des établissements bancaires jordaniens durant la crise mondiale amorcée en 2007-2008. Sous ce thème, nous abordons les questions de la réglementation du système bancaire, de l’asymétrie d'information et du risque de crédit. Une attention particulière est portée à l’analyse de la réglementation issue des différents accords de Bâle, qui a servi de modèle à la régulation du système bancaire jordanien. En effet, non seulement la philosophie de la réglementation bancaire a évolué depuis le premier accord en 1988, mais de plus il existe des interactions entre les dispositifs réglementaires et les problèmes liés à l’information et à la gestion du risque de crédit. A la suite de l'analyse de ces trois facteurs, nous nous tournons vers leur prise en compte dans l'évaluation de la performance bancaire. Nous concentrons notre étude sur la Jordanie, pays dans lequel la structure du marché bancaire a profondément été bouleversée ces dernières années par l’ouverture du marché aux investisseurs internationaux, par l’évolution des normes prudentielles et par les conséquences économiques de la crise financière internationale. Une estimation quantitative du risque de crédit et de la performance est menée, en ayant recours à des méthodes statistiques et économétriques. Les résultats montrent que la dégradation de la performance des banques jordaniennes à partir de 2008 n’est pas due principalement à la réglementation stricte imposée par la banque centrale, mais plutôt à l’autorégulation, caractérisée par un excès de prudence des banques dans leur offre de crédits, particulièrement après avoir connu une période de forte concurrence. / The aim of this thesis is to analyze the performance of Jordanian banks during the recent global crisis that started in 2007-2008. Under this theme, we approach the banking system regulatory issues, the information asymmetry and the credit risk. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the regulations stemming from various Basel agreements, which served as a model for the regulation of the Jordanian banking system. Indeed, not only the philosophy for banking regulation has evolved since the first agreement in 1988, but more interactions have emerged between regulatory systems with information and credit risk management related problems. Following the analysis of these three factors, we will study their role in the evaluation of the banking sector performance. We focus our study on Jordan, a country in which the structure of the banking market has been deeply disturbed in recent years by opening the market to international investors, by changing the prudential standards and the economic consequences of the global financial crisis. Our approach is to conduct a quantitative assessment of credit risk and performance, through the use of statistical and econometric methods. The results show that the degradation in the performance of Jordanian banks starting from 2008 is not mainly the result of the strict regulations implemented by the Central Bank of Jordan, but rather an auto-regulation characterized by the banks excessively cautious attitude to their credit supply, especially after a period of intense competition.

The Diploma Thesis deals with the banking crisis and aims to account for different approaches to the understanding of the nature of banking crisis. The Thesis further aims to provide answers why the banking crisis are caused and why so far there are no measures that would effectivelly prevent such crisis. At first, the Thesis states the definition of banking with the emphasis on banks as the institutional backbone of the current functioning of the financial system. The Thesis pays specific attention to the characteristics of two basic legal banking instruments, particulary loans and deposits. While acknowledging the loan expansion, the thesis argues the role of regulatory authorities and the limits of their competences in regards to the prevention of crisis. Followingly, the Thesis offers a view on a banking crisis phenomenon with appropriate historical overview outlining the banking crisis in Czechoslovakia in years 1918 to 1939 and after 1989, the loan expension influence on the business cycles and approaches to banking crisis solving in respect to stabilization of the banking system and restructuring of banks. At last but not least, the Thesis sums up the global financial crisis that started as a banking crisis, respectively as a crisis of one segment of the banking market in the United States...