Are Banking Crises Really an Equal Opportunity Menace?

This paper investigates exposure to banking crises. Based on a long-term perspective and descriptive statistics, Reinhart and Rogoff (2008, 2009) and Qian et al. (2011) concluded that banking crises are equal opportunity menaces in the sense that both advanced and developing economies face the same exposure. This paper confirms this result, relying on the hazard function of a duration model. Moreover, we extend the concept that banking crises are an equal opportunity menace in two directions. First, we show that graduation from inflation, currency, or debt crises does not reduce the exposure to banking crises. Second, we indicate that top banking centers do not have a higher exposure to banking crises.