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Conference Paper
Economic cycles and bank health
Over the past two decades the United States has experienced substantial increases in the number of bank failures, however, surprisingly few banks have failed during the 2001 recession. This paper explores the relationship between economic cycles and bank health. We find that economic forecasts provide little additional information over bank-specific financial data during prosperous times, possibly because bank problems during these times are likely to be idiosyncratic to individual management decisions. However, economic forecasts become relevant during troubled economic periods, with poor ...
Conference Paper
Building an infrastructure for financial stability: an overview
Journal Article
Insiders' assessments of the stock market's pricing of New England banks
The surge in bank failures in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted many policy proposals in search of an improved regulatory and supervisory framework. One such reform urges the enhancement of market forces in the disciplining of banking institutions. This study assesses the effectiveness of one type of outside monitor, stock market participants, in identifying New England banks' exposure to the region's real estate market in the late 1980s and early 1990s. An examination of this issue is important for evaluating the potential role that private sector claimholders can exercise in the ...
Journal Article
Pricing bank stocks: the contribution of bank examinations
In the wake of recent studies concluding that financial markets effectively demand risk premia on noninsured bank securities, the debate has intensified over whether we should place greater reliance on markets and less reliance on direct regulatory oversight. This study contributes to the debate by investigating the interaction between the market's pricing of bank equity securities and the regulatory examination process during the early stages of New England's banking crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It addresses the concern that reducing regulatory oversight may adversely affect ...
Journal Article
Problem loans at New England banks, 1989 to 1992: evidence of aggressive loan policies
The New England banking industry experienced serious problems between 1989 and 1992. As the region's economy deteriorated, banks failed at an unprecedented rate and many others barely survived. Banking problems were widespread, but they were not uniform. The ratio of nonperforming loans to total loans was in excess of 10 percent for some New England banks, below 1 percent for others, even though all faced the external shock of the collapse in the region's real estate market.> This study attempts to determine whether a 'skills' hypothesis or a 'policies' hypothesis better explains the ...
Journal Article
Resolving a banking crisis: what worked in New England
Many Asian economies are now experiencing economic hardship, their troubles stemming in part from crises in their banking sectors. Given the important role the banking sector plays in these economies, resolution of their banking crises is a vital first step toward resuming economic growth. Unfortunately, the steps taken so far appear inadequate, and many observers compare current attempts to those of U.S. regulators during our initial efforts to resolve the S&L crisis. Given the lengthy time it took and the high cost of the taxpayer-supported resolution, this is not a comparison the Asian ...
Journal Article
Depositor discipline at failing banks
Uninsured depositors, whose deposits are not fully protected by federal deposit insurance, have an incentive to monitor banks' activities and impose additional funding costs on risky banks. This pricing is a form of market discipline, since the market penalizes banks for taking on greater risk. For banks that become troubled, market discipline can take a more severe form: Market participants may become unwilling to supply uninsured funds at any reasonable price. This study examines the effectiveness of depositor discipline at banks that failed in New England in the early 1990s. ; The ...
Journal Article
Building an infrastructure for financial stability: an overview
Numerous conferences organized in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 1997-98 offered analyses of what went wrong in the crisis countries and prompted a number of reform proposals directed toward reducing the risk of future crises. However, now that the crisis has abated, reform appears to be much lower on most political agendas and is rarely the topic of media reports or academic inquiries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's June 2000 conference "Building an Infrastructure for Financial Stability" attempted to address this deficiency. ; As conference participants presented their ...
Journal Article
Banking in the age of information technology