This dissertation presents three essays. The first analyzes the determinants of the fiscal costs and output loss for a broad sample of countries experiencing a banking crisis. It explores three hypotheses: crisis countries with a greater supply of financial professionals, all else equal, experienced lower fiscal costs and output loss than countries with a smaller supply; policy measures contributed to the fiscal costs and output loss; and countries with a limited supply of financial professionals typically adhere to civil rather than common law. The essay does not find strong statistical support in cross-national data for the hypothesis that specialized professions reduce the fiscal costs and output loss of crisis in countries undergoing restructuring. It does, however, find robust statistical evidence that the fiscal costs and output loss during a crisis are not predetermined, and much of the variation is explained by policy measures. Of particular interest is the finding that the blanket guarantee dummy is very significant and robust to any specification. The essay finds evidence pointing to the legal tradition as an important determinant of the availability of professions.