Capital surcharges on global systemically important banks (GSIBs) decrease lending to firms but do not have any real effects. Banks subject to higher surcharges reduce loan commitments relative to other banks. In response to surcharges, GSIBs also lower their estimates of firm risk. Firms' total...

This note proposes a new index that can be used to gauge broad financial conditions and assess how these conditions are related to future economic growth. The index is broadly consistent with how the FRB/US model generally relates key financial variables to economic activity

We provide the first empirical evidence that zombie firms---highly levered firms with weak growth prospects---are not a prominent feature of the U.S. economy and that U.S. banks do not lend to such firms. Using confidential supervisory data on firm-bank relationships during the 2014--2019...