Banking system stress tests are a key component of IMF/World Bank financial stability assessments.

Conditional value at risk (CoVaR) and marginal expected shortfall (MES) have been proposed as stock return based measures of the systemic risk created by individual financial institutions even though the literature provides no formal hypothesis test for detecting systemic risk. We address this...

Recent proposals have recommended important modifications to the supplemental leverage ratio (SLR) to promote the production of market liquidity and other beneficial banking activities that are alleged to have declined because of the introduction of Basel III capital regulations. A much better...

In this working paper, Paul Kupiec develops an algorithm to approximate the loss rate distribution for fixed income portfolios with obligor concentrations.

The Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) has many legal issues that could prevent its use. Should there be a next financial crisis, regulators may again be forced to sell a large failing bank to a larger banking institution, creating yet another too-big-to-fail (TBTF)...

I review 20 years of financial data and highlight important changes in the banking industry. Post financial crisis laws and regulations and new Federal Reserve monetary policies have left a lasting impact on the industry. By 2021, the number of independent depository institutions declined to...

Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) requires regulators to sanction banks before they become insolvent and to resolve institutions within 90 days of reaching critically undercapitalized status. Forensic studies of the financial crisis conclude that the PCA process not only failed to rehabilitate...

There was a time when the Federal Reserve believed that honest money—i.e., a stable price level— was essential for achieving full employment. Today, retired Fed officials are recommending that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) target 3-percent inflation. They argue that a 3 percent...

The efficacy of the Financial Stability Board's proposed requirement for minimum "total loss absorbing capacity" (TLAC) at global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) is assessed using a stylized model of a bank holding company and an equilibrium asset pricing model to value financial claims. I...

This paper highlights the policy uncertainty inherent in using stress tests, both to set minimum bank capital requirements and to assess the capital adequacy needed to maintain banking system stability.