Contributor(s): Professor Raghuram Rajan | Lionel Robbins was one of the outstanding men of his time; economist, public servant and supporter of the arts. The lectures, which were established in his name, take place each year and are a major event in the life of the School, featuring eminent economists from around the world. This year Raghuram Rajan, the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth will deliver the Lionel Robbins Lectures. A bank's issuance of short-term demandable or overnight claims in order to finance illiquid loans leads to panics. Since the dawn of banking in Assyria and Sumeria, long before we had central banks, deposit insurance, or a tax advantage to debt, banks have had this structure, and critics have been troubled by it, as they are today. Professor Rajan will argue that this structure of banks - financing illiquid loans with short term or demandable debt - is not just a bug in the system, it is also a feature. This talk
