Oh, I realize that most people don't study historical banking system but what your saying is only partly and only if you look at specific places.
The crisis in the US system in the 19th century were usually based on bad harvest that lead to a banking crisis. The US was suffering from absolutely horrible banking regulations back then and that was acknowledged by everybody (and was blocked from being reformed for 25 years).
However the severity and duration were not necessary longer then they are today. The Great Depression and Great Recession were easily as bad or worse then any of the recessions in the pre-WW1 era.
Furthermore Canada, who was just north of the US and with a similar economy suffered no banking crisis at all during that period. So saying that it was like a yo-yo in the 19th is simply not true unless you are locking at the US. Even in the US banking systems in some states performed significantly better then others (more diversity in regulation back then).
Actually, some of us do, and some of us study it rather more widely than the US - which is actually regarded as having one of the world's more dubious banking systems during the 19th century.
Some of us would also make the claim that the reason the European banking system was also bouncing up and down like a yo-yo in the 19th, was that the American system kept crashing it (cascade failure.)
Canada's branch banking system was quite different to that used in America, and probably played a part in the relative stability. It probably also helped that during that period Canada was a big exporter, and was to some extent protected by the Sterling zone. However the British banking system was also suffering from periodic crashes during this period.. so it's unwise to get too carried away with that analysis.
Great. So we are in agreement. 19th century banking was not 'like a yoyo' it depended on lots of factors and was the opposite of a yoyo in some places.
The US history of banking is really a fucking mess. Its a travesty.
This is a fun little podcast about banking history in the US:
The crisis in the US system in the 19th century were usually based on bad harvest that lead to a banking crisis. The US was suffering from absolutely horrible banking regulations back then and that was acknowledged by everybody (and was blocked from being reformed for 25 years).
However the severity and duration were not necessary longer then they are today. The Great Depression and Great Recession were easily as bad or worse then any of the recessions in the pre-WW1 era.
Furthermore Canada, who was just north of the US and with a similar economy suffered no banking crisis at all during that period. So saying that it was like a yo-yo in the 19th is simply not true unless you are locking at the US. Even in the US banking systems in some states performed significantly better then others (more diversity in regulation back then).