Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the sixteenth largest bank in the United States, experienced a bank run in early March 2023, and was closed by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) on March 10. This bank failure, followed by others, creates fear of contagion throughout the U.S. and global banking systems. This Brief identifies four factors leading to the SVB crisis: i) Sharp interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, which adversely affected SVB’s income and balance shee ...