The author focuses on the relative emphasis that the structure of regulatory capital places on formulas and on supervision. The two are not viewed as mutually exclusive, but as elements to which capital policy implicitly assigns relative weights. He shows that in U.S. regulatory practice, these...

This paper introduces a generalized approach to canonical regression, in which a set of jointly dependent variables enters the left-hand side of the equation as a linear combination, formally like the linear combination of regressors in the right-hand side of the equation. Natural applications...

The econometrics literature contains a variety of two-sided tests for unknown breakpoints in time-series models with one or more parameters. This paper derives an analogous one-sided test that takes into account the direction of the change for a single parameter. In particular, we propose a sup...

Bank supervisors have made significant strides since 1980 in the area of capital requirements, and they are currently pursuing further refinements. This article looks beyond such developments at longer term supervisory goals. Abstracting to some extent from the current regulatory framework, the...

The current review of the 1988 Basel Capital Accord has put the spotlight on the ratios used to assess banks' capital adequacy. This article examines the effectiveness of three capital ratios - the first based on leverage, the second on gross revenues, and the third on risk-weighted assets - in...

The yield curve?specifically, the spread between the interest rates on the ten-year Treasury note and the three-month Treasury bill?is a valuable forecasting tool. It is simple to use and significantly outperforms other financial and macroeconomic indicators in predicting recessions two to six...

There is a risk of an increasing disconnect between regulatory capital and what banks and other financial institutions do. The last few decades have brought tremendous changes in the nature of financial firms, their activities, and their approaches to risk management. In such an environment,...