We use a newly constructed narrative measure of regulatory bank capital requirement tightening events (Eickmeier et al., 2018) to examine their effects on household income and expenditure inequality in the US. Income and expenditure inequality both decline (the latter decline being slightly less...

Bank capital regulations are intended to enhance financial stability in the long run, but may, in the meanwhile, involve costs for the real economy. To examine these costs we propose a narrative index of aggregate tightenings in regulatory US bank capital requirements from 1979 to 2008....