ABSTRACT
Since the latest reviews of this topic by Freixas et al. (1990), Kaufman (1994), and Dowd (1992), signifi cant political changes have taken place. Th ese go from increasing macroeconomic policy coordination within states (due to an ever-increasing fi nancial interaction across economic blocks) to the full integration of the European Monetary Union and major reforms of international institutions such as the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Naturally, in a fairly large number of papers concerning the impact of such changes upon systemic risk, the LOLR and its international version have appeared. Th e latest events surrounding the current credit crunch have revived discussions about the LOLR function. As a result, the information seems to be scattered enough to justify revisiting the literature on the LOLR produced in the last decades. Motivated by this, the author decided to review and bring back to discussion some old and other rather new developments in the LOLR theory.
