This paper studies how a worsening of the debt overhang distortion on bank lending can explain banking solvency crises that are accompanied by a plunge of bank asset values and by a severe contraction of lending and economic activity. Since the value of bank assets depends on economic prospects,...

This study tries to get a sense of the topography of the regional banking landscape. We focus on bank holding companies and banks with $10 billion to $50 billion in assets and look for factors that potentially explain regional bank health from 2008 to 2013. Our dataset is a combination of bank...

This paper looks at the effect of capital rules on a banking system that is connected through correlated credit exposures and interbank lending. Keeping total capital in the system constant, the reallocation rules, which combine individual bank characteristics and interconnectivity measures of...

The alleged pro-cyclicality of bank capital (high in good times, low in bad) has received some blame for the recent financial crisis. Others blame the countercyclicality of capital regulations: too low in high times and too high in bad. To address this problem, Basel III has introduced...