The Macroeconomic Implications of the New Banking Capital Regulation in Emerging Markets : A Duopoly Model Adapted to Risk-Averse Banks

In order to analyze the impact of the new banking capital regulation (Basel II) on the business cycle in an emerging economy, I develop a duopoly model composed of domestic and foreign banks. The principal results are: by the conduct of new banking capital regulation, the assessment of credit risk carried out by an international bank in agiven country not only affects the total loans in that country but also the total assets supplied in other countries. Second, analyzing risk-averse banks, as portfolio diversification increases, the change in loans allocated in a given country by an international bank as a proportion of the original investment and the total level of loans for that country can be harshly affected by the behavior of a foreign bank following only quot;newsquot; through the new capital regulation. Finally, even in the case that portfolio diversification increases without limits, the macroeconomic implication of a change of credit risk estimation, via the new capital regulation, is larger when banks are risk-neutral than risk-averse