The current debate on the possible procyclicality of the new Basel Accord pays little attention to the procyclicality created by unsound loan loss provisioning. This paper investigates how bank provisioning behaviour is related to the business cycle, using 8,000 bank-year observations from 29...

This report presents an overview of the theory of regulation in general, with special attention for the regulation of banks. Two theories of government regulation are described. The first, normative, theory uses market failures as the justification of government regulation. The second, positive,...

This study aims at assessing empirically the determinants of changes in risk-weighted bank capital ratios in the 1990s in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. Both bank-specific characteristics, factors at the banking industry level and the degree of undercapitalization...

Financial conglomerates, combining banking, securities trading, and insurance, have become an important part of the financial landscape in many countries. Cross-sector consolidation has been fostered by trends such as disintermediation, globalization, and deregulation creating new challenges for...

The proposed risk sensitive minimum requirements of the new Basel capital accord have raised concerns about possible (acceleration of) procyclical behaviour of banking, which might threaten macroeconomic stability. This paper analyses the interaction between business cycles and bank behaviour...

This paper studies the impact of explicit deposit insurance on market discipline in a framework that resembles a natural experiment. We improve upon previous studies by exploiting a unique combination of country-specific circumstances, design features, and data availability that allows us to...

We assess the determinants of banks' liquidity holdings using balance sheet data for nearly 7000 banks from 30 OECD countries over a ten-year period. We highlight the role of several bank-specific, institutional and policy variables in shaping banks' liquidity risk management. Our main question...

We investigate 62 Dutch banks' liquidity behaviour between January 2004 and March 2010, when these banks were subject to a liquidity regulation that is very similar to Basel III's Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR). We find that most banks hold more liquid assets against their stock of liquid...

We conduct a laboratory experiment to examine under which circumstances a depositor-run at one bank may lead to a depositor-run at another bank. We implement two-person coordination games which capture the essence of the Diamond-Dybvig (1983) bank-run model. Subjects in the roles of followers...

This paper analyzes the conditions under which a financial institution is systemically important. Measuring the level of systemic importance of financial institutions, we find that size is a leading determinant confirming the usual "Too Big To Fail" argument. Nevertheless, the relation is...