Bank regulation is based on the premise that risks spill over more easily from large banks to the banking system than vice versa. On the contrary, we document that risk transmission is stronger in the system-to-bank direction. We term this asymmetric systemic risk, measure it with net exposure...

Recent years have seen renewed interest in the regulation of interbank markets. A review of the literature in this area identifies two gaps: first, the literature has tended to make ad hoc assumptions about the interbank contract space, which makes it difficult to generate convincing policy...

This paper proposes a novel methodology to calibrate the magnitude of the cap on the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) using market-based stress tests. The macroprudential authority in our paper aims to contain the possibility of a breach of a minimum capital ratio in the event of a severe...

This paper develops a model of an economy where bank credit supports both productive investment and individual consumption smoothing in the face of idiosyncratic income risk. Bank credit is constrained by bank equity capital. When policy-makers inject equity capital during financial crises, they...

This paper analyzes the implications of the global financial cycle for conventional and unconventional monetary policies and macroprudential policy in small, open economies such as Canada. The paper starts by summarizing recent work on financial cycles and their growing correlation across...

The financial sector bailouts seen during the Great Recession generated substantial opposition and controversy. We assess the welfare benefits of government-funded emergency support to the financial sector, taking into account its effects on risk-taking incentives. In our quantitative general...

How much discretion should local financial regulators in a banking union have in accommodating local credit demand? I analyze this question in an economy where local regulators privately observe expected output from high lending. They do not fully internalize default costs from high lending...

We study constrained-efficient bank capital regulation in a model with market-imposed equity requirements. Banks hold equity buffers to insure against sudden loss of access to funding. However, in the model, banks choose to only partially self-insure because equity is privately costly. As a...

This paper studies optimal bank capital requirements in a model of endogenous bank funding conditions. I find that requirements should be higher during good times such that a macroprudential "buffer" is provided. However, whether banks can use buffers to maintain lending during a financial...

Countercyclical bank capital requirements have emerged as a popular regulatory tool to help smooth financial cycles. The idea is to reduce capital requirements when exogenous shocks cause aggregate bank capital to decrease so that regulation does not needlessly constrain banks' supply of credit....