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...

As the Basel III package nears completion, the emphasis is shifting to monitoring its implementation and assessing the impact of the reforms. This paper presents a simple conceptual framework to assess the macroeconomic impact of the core Basel III reforms, including the leverage ratio surcharge...

The Basel III leverage ratio (LR) is designed to restrict the build-up of leverage in the banking sector and to backstop the existing risk-weighted capital requirements (RWRs) with a simple, non-risk-weighted measure. But how should a minimum LR requirement be set? This special feature presents...

Bail-in regulation is a centrepiece of the post-crisis overhaul of bank resolution. It requires major banks to maintain a sufficient amount of "bail-in debt" that can absorb losses during resolution. If resolution regimes are credible, investors in bail-in debt should have a strong incentive to...

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...

Increasing demand for collateral assets in the aftermath of the financial crisis has raised concerns about a shortage of high-quality assets (HQA). Drawing on a recent report by the Committee on the Global Financial System, we argue that such concerns seem unjustified. In aggregate, the increase...

Drawing from a recent report by the Committee on the Global Financial System, we identify signs of increased fragility and divergence of liquidity conditions across different fixed income markets. Market-making is concentrating in the most liquid securities and deteriorating in the less liquid...

Drawing from a recent report by the Committee on the Global Financial System, we identify signs of increased fragility and divergence of liquidity conditions across different fixed income markets. Market-making is concentrating in the most liquid securities and deteriorating in the less liquid...

This paper presents a framework to assess the relative importance of three key sources of productivity growth that research on international trade focuses on: (i) inter-industry specialisation; (ii) intra-industry reallocation of resources across heterogeneous firms, including firm entry and...