Banks allocate capital across business units while facing multiple constraints that may bind contemporaneously or only in future states. When risks rise or risk management strengthens, a bank reallocates capital to the more efficient unit. This unit would have generated higher constraint- and...

Post-crisis reforms aim to mitigate the systemic risks that arise from global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). Based on our estimates of G-SIBs' probability of distress, we find that their resilience has improved in recent years on the back of higher capital ratios. Furthermore, by...

What determines banks’ responses to higher capital requirements? We show that profitability is crucial as it underpins the opportunity cost of downsizing and the ability to generate capital. To illustrate this, we assess the introduction of capital surcharges for systemically important banks....

Profitability underpins the opportunity cost of shrinking assets and the ability to generate capital. It thus shapes banks’ responses to higher capital requirements. We present a stylised model to formalise this insight and test our theoretical predictions on a cornerstone of the...