The new Basel Capital Adequacy Accord (Basel III) is an agreement among countries' central banks and bank supervisory authorities on the amount of capital banks must hold as a cushion against losses and insolvency. Basel III is of concern to Congress mainly because it could put U.S. financial...

Although there have been substantial developments in financial reporting over recent years, the reporting of risk in statutory reports is still very much evolving. This comes as no surprise, given numerous definitions and subsequent measures of risk. In the financial services sector, the...

In June 2004 the Committee published a revised framework for the international convergence of capital measurement and capital standards, known as Basel II. The proposal includes a formal capital charge against operational risk in the business activities of banks. The calculation of an...

The role of economic capital has grown significantly in recent years. Although not a regulatory requirement, an increasing number of financial institutions use economic capital for such purposes as measuring and managing the performance of people, products, risk exposures, and to manage and...

All banks must hold capital equal to the minimum regulatory requirement. However, in many cases the level of regulatory capital diverges from the actual (economic) capital held by banks. A bank's actual capital is typically linked to a target credit rating, which is in turn determined by the...

This paper develops a framework for examining the impact of changes in the solvency standard of a bank (target credit rating) on the pricing of bank assets. We show that the decision of a bank to increase its solvency standard increases the price of bank assets to the extent that a bank prices...

Within the context of a banking institution, economic capital is a statistical measure of the amount of resources required to meet unexpected losses over a specified time period and specified level of certainty. The amount of economic capital held by banks is thus a function of their target...

In June 2004 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements issued its revised framework for the international convergence of capital measurement and capital standards. In developing the framework the Committee has sought to determine risk-sensitive capital...

This dissertation examines four specific aspects of capital structure and dividend policy.The first issue concerns the determinants of capital structure dynamics. The primaryobjective is to examine whether stock returns are important factors in firm?s capitalstructure choice, and if so, whether...

Using information of the balance sheets of Spanish banks between 1995 and 2009, we estimate the average impact of current and anticipated changes in banks’ capital on fi rm lending. We isolate the role of credit supply factors using the variation in capital growth associated to the...