The level of a bank‘s capitalization can effectively transmit information about its riskiness and therefore support market discipline, but asymmetry information may induce exaggerated or distortionary behavior: banks may vie with one another to signal confidence in their prospects by keeping...

A mechanism is proposed that aims to reduce the risk of a banking sector liquidity crisis�which is a quintessentially systemic event and thus the object of macroprudential policy�and moderate the effects of a crisis should one occur. The instrument would give banks more incentive to build up...

Rules of thumb can be useful in undertaking quick, robust, and readily interpretable bank stress tests. Such rules of thumb are proposed for the behavior of banks’ capital ratios and key drivers thereof—primarily credit losses, income, credit growth, and risk weights—in advanced and...