The aim of this paper is to assess how German savings banks adjust capital and risk under capital regulation. We estimate a modified version of the model developed by Shrieves and Dahl (1992). This paper contributes to the literature in three ways. First, we test the capital buffer theory...

We analyze the dynamics of banks' regulatory capital ratios. Using monthly data of regulatory capital ratios for a subset of large German banks, we estimate the target level and the adjustment speed of the capital ratio for each bank separately. We find evidence that, first, there exists a...

We derive approximate formulae for the credit value-at-risk and the economic capital of a large credit portfolio. The representation allows to change the risk horizon quickly and avoids simulation or numerical procedures. The Poisson mixture model is equivalent to CreditRisk and uses the same...

In contrast to earlier field studies, we survey German public savings banks on their management of capital. We find that the most important determinants of the savings banks? target capital ratio are risk aversion, the desired credit growth and profitability. Savings banks prefer to manage the...

The paper analyses the potential impact of stock market developments on lending behaviour from different perspectives. First we scrutinize the impact of stock market movements on the banks' and on the borrowers' balance sheets. Subsequently we estimate aggregate credit supply and demand...

Developments in risk-transfer instruments and risk management techniques in the last two decades have fundamentally changed how banks manage their assets and liabilities. In this document we show that, for all three sectors of German universal banks (private commercial banks, savings banks, and...

The impact of the business cycle on banks' internally generated cash flow is an important driver in the pro-cyclical dynamics of the traditional banking business and yet the issue has been understated in the discussion on counter-cyclical regulations. Considerable attention has been given to the...

Banks typically determine their capital levels by separately analysing credit and interest rate risk, but the interaction between the two is significant and potentially complex. We develop an integrated economic capital model for a banking book where all exposures are held to maturity. Our...

Banks increasingly use short-term wholesale funds to supplement traditional retail deposits. Existing literature mainly points to the "bright side" of wholesale funding: sophisticated financiers can monitor banks, disciplining bad but refinancing good ones. This paper models a "dark side" of...

International bank portfolios constitute a large component of international country portfolios. Yet, their response to macroeconomic conditions and their impact on the international transmission of business cycles developments remains largely unexplored. We use a novel dataset on banks?...