At the time they occurred, the savings and loan insolvencies were considered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Contrary to what was then believed, and in sharp contrast with 2007-09, they in fact had little macroeconomic significance. S&L remediation cost between 2 and 3...

This paper studies capital adequacy rules based on Value-at-Risk (VaR), leverage ratios, and stress testing. VaR is the basis of Basel II, and all three approaches are proposed in Basel III. This paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, we prove that these three rules provide an...