The close of the 20th century saw a remarkably high incidence of bank distress and insolvency. This book seeks to identify the causes of this ongoing financial crisis and to draw lessons for the future, with the aim of assisting developed, transition and emerging economies alike to better cope with future crises. Banks in Distress takes as its focus the major financial system crisis experienced by the US in the 1980s, reviewing the evolution of the US banking system and the legislative, regulatory, and monetary policies of the 1980s which set the stage for the crises that followed. The author argues that the financial difficulties in the US, and to some extent the rest of the world, were largely precipitated and exacerbated by government intervention into the American domestic economy through uncoordinated monetary and fiscal policy, as well as the uncoordinated enactment of regulatory, supervisory and enforcement legislation and policy.