This paper empirically investigates how risk exposure of security holdings affected the optimal choice of total risk weighted asset under Basel II regulation. With costly recapitalization cost, banks optimally choose buffer regulatory capital above the minimum standard. Therefore, security...

We develop a novel approach to study how banks respond to fluctuations in the risk of panic-driven retail deposit withdrawals. To proxy for changes in withdrawal risk, we track online information acquisition about different brands of UK banks. We find that banks facing surges in information...

The United States is now committed to using two relatively sophisticated approaches to measuring capital adequacy: Basel III and stress tests. This paper shows how stress testing could mitigate weaknesses in the way Basel III measures credit and interest rate risk, the way it measures bank...

The Basel capital adequacy ratios lost credibility with financial markets during the crisis. This paper argues that failure was the result of the reliance of the Basel standards on overstated asset values in reported equity capital. The United States' stress tests were able to assist in...

Recent policy discussion includes the introduction of diversification requirements for sovereign bond portfolios of European banks. In this paper, we evaluate the possible effects of these constraints on risk and diversification in the sovereign bond portfolios of the major European banks....

We develop a model of bank risk-taking with strategic sovereign default risk. Domestic banks invest in real projects and purchase government bonds. While an increase in bond purchases crowds out profitable investments, it improves the government's incentives to repay and therefore lowers its...

The euro area financial system took excessive risks during the global credit boom, which in some countries led to an unsustainable increase in credit, higher asset prices and housing booms. This process helped to fuel large imbalances within the euro area. Banks played a key role in channelling...

What is the impact of policy interventions on the systemic risk of banks? To answer this question, we analyze a comprehensive sample that combines an original set of bank-specific bailout events with balance sheets of key affected and non-affected European banks between 2005 and 2014. We find a...

This paper addresses the trade-off between additional loss-absorbing capacity and potentially higher bank risk-taking associated with the introduction of the Basel III Leverage Ratio. This is addressed in both a theoretical and empirical setting. Using a theoretical micro model, we show that a...

We develop a model of bank risk-taking with strategic sovereign default risk. Domestic banks invest in real projects and purchase government bonds. While an increase in bond purchases crowds out profitable investments, it improves the government's incentives to repay and therefore lowers its...