Balancing bank and state in new model search

The most recent phase of the financial crisis, since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, has been characterized by large bank losses and the continued threat of bank collapses. The size of the calamity raises the question of whether small countries can really afford bank bailouts.

But the definition of "small" keeps changing: a few months ago, small meant Iceland, and now it means the United Kingdom. The aftermath of the banking crisis requires thinking about not only the most appropriate form of banking legislation, but also the appropriate size of the state.

There has always been uncertainty about the best design of a banking system, and there has always been competition between different sorts of banking regulation. On the one hand, there is the idea - which defined banking for much of American history - that banks should be close to the risks that they must judge. This ideal grew out of Andrew Jackson's titanic struggle with Nicholas Biddle and the Second Bank of the United States. Populism was pitted against the financiers, and populism won. As a result, most nineteenth-century US banks did not have branches, and were limited to one state.