bank runs
Mass withdrawal frenzies
A bank run is a rush of depositors to withdraw funds from a bank they believe may fail.
The fear becomes self-fulfilling: banks don't keep enough cash on hand to cover all deposits at once, so mass withdrawals can cause the very collapse depositors feared.
Bank runs were common during the Great Depression before deposit insurance existed.
The term extends metaphorically to any panic-driven flight from an institution: a run on the currency, a run on money market funds.
- depositorsThose who bank funds
- banksFinancial institutions or riversides
- insolvencyInability to pay debts
- Glass-Steagall ActLaw dividing banking types
- liquidity crisisInability to access funds
contagion · stampede · withdrawals · lining up · queue · failures · panic · FDIC · financial crisis · fear · Great Depression · mistrust · Federal Reserve · cash · vault · systemic risk · financial contagion · liquidation
- economic historystock market crash, Industrial Revolution, trade routes, Great Depression, gold standard
- US bankingFDIC, Fed, national banks, Federal Reserve, Glass-Steagall
- Banking Historycentral banks, Federal Reserve, gold standard, Glass-Steagall, FDIC
- economic problemsmarket failure, recession, inflation, deflation, stagflation
- financial crisesfinancial collapse, economic collapse, market crash, credit crunch, market panic
- Interwar EconomicsGreat Depression, interwar period, hyperinflation, gold standard, New Deal