The 1931 banking crisis in Germany contributed to the rise of the Nazi party, researchers say in a new paper, hinting at a mechanism through which more recent crises might have led to a rise in radical politics.

Sebastian Doerr, Stefan Gissler, Jose-Luis Peydro and Hans-Joachim Voth draw on a dataset of firms’ exposure to Danatbank, the institution whose collapse sparked a systemic crisis in 1931. The data allows them to map out the regions of Germany most exposed to the crisis. They present