This paper analyzes the determinants of regulatory capital (the minimum required by regulation) and economic capital (the capital that shareholders would choose in absence of regulation) in the context of the single risk factor model that underlies the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II). The...

This Paper analyses the determinants of regulatory capital (the minimum required by regulation) and economic capital (the capital that shareholders would choose in absence of regulation) in the context of the single risk factor model that underlies the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II). The...

We present a simple model of an economy with heterogeneous banks that may be funded with uninsured deposits and equity capital. Capital serves to ameliorate a moral hazard problem in the choice of risk. There is a fixed aggregate supply of bank capital, so the cost of capital is endogenous. A...

Auditing is introduced into a model of bank capital regulation. Deterministic and stochastic auditing strategies are studied. Contrary to intuition, auditing of bank risk should be focused on the safest banks because they hold the least amount of capital. Risky banks, which hold more capital,...

We analyze the cyclical effects of moving from risk-insensitive (Basel I) to risk-sensitive (Basel II) capital requirements in the context of a dynamic equilibrium model of relationship lending in which banks are unable to access the equity markets every period. Banks anticipate that shocks to...

This paper compares alternative procedures to mitigate the procyclicality of the new risk-sensitive bank capital regulation (Basel II). We estimate a model of the probabilities of default (PDs) of Spanish firms during the period 1987-2008, and use the estimated PDs to compute the corresponding...