I identify issues that bank regulators need to consider if fair value accounting is used for determining bank regulatory capital and when making regulatory decisions. In financial reporting, US and international accounting standard setters have issued several disclosure and measurement and...

The aim of this paper is to examine what has been the role of information provision to the market throughout the crisis. We consider two main sources of information to the market, financial statements and information provided by credit rating agencies. We examine how these sources of information...

We investigate the economic consequences of the implementation of a particular aspect of Basel III in the U.S. Specifically, the Basel III proposal and the corresponding U.S. rule (hereafter referred to as the removal of the AOCI filter) to make the inclusion of unrealized fair value gains and...

Bank capital requirements are based on a mix of market values and book values. We investigate the effects of a policy change that ties regulatory capital to the market value of the "available-for-sale" investment securities portfolio for some banking organizations. Our analysis is based on...

EU politicians pressured the IASB to change the accounting rules for financial assets at the peak of the financial crisis in October 2008. The new rules enabled banks to forgo the recognition of unrealized fair value losses through reclassifications. This paper puts the ensuing regulatory relief...

We investigate the effects of countercyclical prudential buffers on bank risk-taking. We exploit the introduction of dynamic loan loss provisioning in Spain, mandating that banks use historical average loss rates in their estimation of loan loss provisions. We find that dynamic loan loss...

This paper evaluates the business activities, financial reports, and management compensation practices of Countrywide Financial Corporation (Countrywide) in the period preceding the company's financial distress and leading to its eventual takeover by Bank of America in 2008. This analysis...

Regulators frequently relax accounting rules during a financial crisis as a means of regulatory forbearance. The new accounting options provide banks with an opportunity for an accrual-based increase in their regulatory capital. The use of such an accounting option helps reduce the costs of...