[...]The most obvious possible, and undesirable,impact on bank behaviour of risk-weighted capital requirementsis that excessive differentials in the weights appliedto different categories of assets might induce banks to substituteaway from highly risk-weighted assets. In the early1990s, U.S....

Advocates of fair value accounting believe that fair valuesprovide more relevant measures of assets, liabilities, andearnings than do historical costs. These advocates assertthat fair value accounting better reflects underlying economicvalues. The advantages of this method—and thecorresponding...

Bank supervisors have long recognized two types of shortcomingsin the Basle Accord’s risk-based capital (RBC)framework. First, the regulatory measures of “capital” maynot represent a bank’s true capacity to absorb unexpectedlosses. Deficiencies in reported loan loss reserves, forexample,...