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We provide experimental evidence that panic bank runs occur in the absence of problems with fundamentals and coordination failures among depositors, the two main culprits identified in the literature. Depositors withdraw when they observe that others do so, even when theoretically they should not. Our findings suggest that panic also manifests itself in the beliefs of depositors, who overestimate the probability that a bank run is underway. Loss-aversion has a predictive power on panic behavior, while risk or ambiguity aversion do not. Administración y Dirección de Empresas

We test for the construct validity of the cognitive reflection test (CRT) by eliciting response times. We find that incorrect answers to the CRT are quicker than correct answers. At the individual level, we classify subjects into impulsive and reflective, depending on whether they choose the incorrect intuitive answer or the correct answer the majority of the time. We show that impulsive subjects complete the test quicker than reflective subjects.