Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson write:

Financial crises are staggeringly costly. Only major wars rival them in the burdens they place on public finances. Taxpayers typically transfer enormous resources to banks, their stockholders, and creditors, while public debt explodes and the economy runs below full employment for years. This paper compares how relatively large, developed countries have handled bailouts over time. It analyzes why some have done better than others at containing costs and protecting taxpayers. The paper argues that political variables – the nature of competition within party systems and voting turnout – help explain why some countries do more than others to limit the moral hazards of bailouts.

I know next to nothing about this topic, so I’ll just recommend you click through and read the article yourself. Here’s a bit more:

Many recent papers have analyzed financial crises using large data bases filled with cases from all over the world. Our [Ferguson and Johnson’s] interest here is different. We deliberately limit our concern to relatively large, developed countries that suffered systemic banking crisis involving the actual collapse (or near-collapse) of big financial houses.

They conclude their paper with some reflections on reactions to financial crises in the 1930s.