in both the east and the west, the average number of banks increased in the years leading up to the financial crisis but has been declining since then. while there is certainly more to say about banking services in cities, i want to focus on rural areas for the moment. over the last 20 years, rural westerners have consistently had access to something like 20 percent fewer banks than rural easterners, which amounts to about one less bank per rural county. that may not sound like much, but that one less bank, on average, can make a big difference to the households and small businesses inhabiting those rural counties. the source for statistics presented in this paragraph and the next three paragraphs is federal reserve board staff calculations using bank reports of condition and income filed with the federal financial institutions examination council, thrift financial reports filed with the office of thrift supervision, and summary of deposits filed with the federal deposit insurance corporation. even though state banking restrictions were eliminated in most states decades ago, the differences in the number of banks across states have persisted. - 8in any community, access to credit is essential for economic growth. in any community, but especially in rural communities, small businesses are key drivers of growth. small businesses heavily rely on banks for funding, and community banks, those with less than $ 10 billion in assets, account for a disproportionate share of bank lending to small businesses. but across the country, the number of community banks has fallen by half over the past 20 years, mostly due to consolidation. this fall has been slightly larger in the west than the east, but the reason i highlight this trend is that i believe it has significant consequences for rural communities in the west. the reason returns me to that map i showed earlier. the west is vast, and many rural communities in the west must deal with the challenges of isolation from larger towns and cities that few communities in the east face. rural westerners have access to far fewer banks overall than rural easterners, but that understates the disparity when some western counties are the size of maryland or massachusetts and many are more than a hundred miles across, so that access to a limited number of banks can be difficult or out of reach. to provide some perspective on this challenge, let me share what westerners in one small town have to say about their access to banking services. this account is culled from a series of public meetings that the federal reserve is convening in communities all around the country

stanley fischer : housing and financial stability speech by mr stanley fischer, vice chair of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the dnb ( netherlands bank ) - riksbank ( sveriges riksbank ) macroprudential conference series, amsterdam, netherlands, 20 june 2017. * * * i am grateful to elizabeth klee, andreas lehnert, mary tian, and alexandros vardoulakis of the federal reserve board for their assistance. views expressed in this presentation are my own and not necessarily those of the federal reserve board or the federal open market committee. it is often said that real estate is at the center of almost every financial crisis. that is not quite accurate, for financial crises can, and do, occur without a real estate crisis. but it is true that there is a strong link between financial crises and difficulties in the real estate sector. in their research about financial crises, carmen reinhart and ken rogoff document that the six major historical episodes of banking crises in advanced economies since the 1970s were all associated with a housing bust. 1 plus, the drop in house prices in a bust is often bigger following credit - fueled housing booms, and recessions associated with housing busts are two to three times more severe than other recessions. 2 and, perhaps most significantly, real estate was at the center of the most recent crisis. in addition to its role in financial stability, or instability, housing is also a sector that draws on and faces heavy government intervention, even in economies that generally rely on market mechanisms. coming out of the financial crisis, many jurisdictions are undergoing housing finance reforms, and enacting policies to prevent the next crisis. today i would like to focus on where we now stand on the role of housing and real estate in financial crises, and what we should be doing about that situation. we shall discuss primarily the situation in the united states, and to a much lesser extent, that in other countries. housing and government why are governments involved in housing markets? housing is a basic human need, and politically important and rightly so. using a once - popular term, housing is a merit good it can be produced by the private sector, but its benefit to society is deemed by many great enough that governments strive to make it widely available. 3 as such, over the course of time, governments have supported homebuilding and in most countries have also encouraged homeownership. 4 governments are involved in housing in a