The returns on bank stocks rise and fall with the business cycle, making bank equity financing cheaper in the boom and dearer during a recession. This provides support for prudential tools that give incentives for banks to build capital buffers at times when the cost of equity is lower. In...

This paper shows empirically how asset risk and financial leverage interact to explain the equity risk dynamics of value versus growth stocks. During economic downturns, the asset betas and leverage of value firms increase, contributing to a sharp rise in equity betas. Asset betas of growth...