Research by Professor Emil Verner, Sergio Correia of the Richmond Fed, and Stephan Luck of the New York Fed challenges the notion that bank runs destroy solvent institutions. Using LLMs to analyze 380mn newspaper reports from the Library of Congress's Chronicling America project, they built an interactive database of 3,984 US bank runs from 1863–1934. The study reveals depositors are adept at identifying troubled banks; runs primarily target insolvent or near-insolvent institutions.

Receivers recover roughly 50 cents on the dollar for failed banks' assets. Crucially, most runs did not cause bank failure. Runs on strong banks imposed no local economic cost, while runs on fundamentally weak banks triggered lending contractions and spillovers.

Only 53 runs appeared "non-fundamental," driven by misinformation or confusion. The database, featuring animated maps and newspaper archives, is freely accessible for further research.