In the post-crisis era banks' capital adequacy is established by the Basel III capital standards and, in many jurisdictions, also by supervisory stress tests. In this paper we first describe the ways in which supervisory stress tests can supplement the risk-based capital framework of Basel III...

This paper analyzes the challenges posed by the implementation of the countercyclical capital buffer framework in Italy and proposes ways of meeting them. In the first part of the analysis we review the limitations of the standardized Basel III credit-to-GDP gap; we then propose possible...

We analyse the deleveraging process with reference to a sample of European banks from December 2011 to June 2013 and find that the leverage ratio (measured as assets to equity) has declined on average from 28.6 to 25.0. Its standard deviation fell from 8.2 to 6.5. About 2/3 of the deleveraging...

Italian Abstract: Nel periodo 2007-2014, caratterizzato da due crisi eccezionalmente gravi, le banche locali italiane hanno accresciuto la loro presenza sul territorio, ampliando la rete degli sportelli mentre le altre la riducevano, e rafforzato la quota di mercato sui prestiti a famiglie e...

We identify two categories of potentially ‘bad investors’ in TLAC-eligible bonds for the purpose of bail-in, i.e. households and hedge funds. The exposure of households may create political economy problems for policy makers when they have to decide about bail-in, while holdings by hedge...

While the setting of the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) is not an automatic decision, insights from indicators, such as the credit-to-GDP gap, are a starting point to inform the policy decision. This paper identifies an optimal rule to map the credit-to-GDP gap adjusted to the guide to...

In this article we test whether Italian female entrepreneurs are more reliable payers than men, by carrying out a survival analysis of micro enterprises that utilize a credit for the first time in the period January 2005 to December 2008, and monitoring the quality of their exposure until...

This paper depicts – from a variety of viewpoints – the degree of indebtedness and potential financial vulnerabilities of households across the Italian regions. Micro-data from several sources suggest that the financial situation of Italian households shows striking differences at...

The Basel III regulation explicitly prescribes the use of Hodrick-Prescott filters to estimate credit cycles and calibrate countercyclical capital buffers. However, the filter has been found to suffer from large ex-post revisions, raising concerns over its fitness for policy use. To investigate...

This paper presents stylized facts of the segmentation of the Euro Area (EA) banking system and investigates cross-border banking dynamics. Results show that the determinants of cross-border banking change substantially over-time: (i) in the pre-crisis period of financial integration the...