In the paper, we deal with the unexpected effects of new regulations and supervision and provide recommendations to ensure their effectiveness. New regulations essentially aim at strengthening the solvency and the liquidity of financial institutions. However, some technical aspects of these...

We investigate the impact of changes in capital of European banks on their risk-taking behavior from 1992 to 2006, a time period covering the Basel I capital requirements. We specifically focus on the initial level and type of regulatory capital banks hold. First, we assume that risk changes...

We build a stress testing framework to evaluate the sensitivity of banks’ profitability to plausible but severe adverse macroeconomic shocks. Specifically, we test the resilience of French banks using supervisory data over the period 1993-2009. First, we identify the macroeconomic and...

This study assesses the reaction of stock markets, when Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) announce that they have taken a stake in a listed company. It adds useful empirical results to the debate on the effect of SWFs on financial markets, which remains so far largely reliant on guess work. We...

The SRISK measure is advertised as measuring the recapitalization needed by a financial institution in the event of a financial crisis. It is computed from the estimated reaction of the institution’s share price in the event of a sharp drop in market prices. This indicator relies both on an...

Explicit deposit insurance is a crucial ingredient of modern financial safety nets. This paper investigates the effect of deposit insurance adoption on individual bank leverage. Using a panel of banks across 117 countries during the period 1986-2011, I show that deposit insurance adoption pushes...

In the paper, we first investigate the impact of an increase in capital requirements on the equity risk (beta) of listed banks in France. We find that an increase in capital ratios reduces banks’ systematic risk. This leads to a decrease in shareholders’ required return on equity, providing...

The paper describes the methods used by the French Banking Supervision Authority (ACP) to run stress tests for the corporate credit portfolio, through credit migration matrices (or transition matrices). This approach is currently used for “top-down” stress tests exercises. Developed for...

The paper describes the methods used by the French Banking Supervision Authority (ACP) to run stress tests for the corporate credit portfolio, through credit migration matrices (or transition matrices). This approach is currently used for “top-down” stress tests exercises. Developed for...

We measure the impact of bank capital requirements on corporate borrowing and business activity. We use loan-level data and take advantage of the transition from Basel 1 to Basel 2. While under Basel 1 the capital charge was the same for all firms, under Basel 2, it depends in a predictable way...