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Briefing
Loan loss reserve accounting and bank behavior
The rules governing banks' loan loss provisioning and reserves require a trade-off between the goals of bank regulators, who emphasize safety and soundness, and the goals of accounting standard setters, who emphasize the transparency of financial statements. A strengthening of accounting priorities in the decade prior to the financial crisis was associated with a decrease in the level of loan loss reserves in the banking system.
Working Paper
Loan loss reserves, accounting constraints, and bank ownership structure
This paper examines how the tightening of accounting constraints associated with the SunTrust bank decision in 1998 impacted the loan loss reserve policies of banks differently based on ownership structure. The SunTrust case, the result of an SEC inquiry over possible overstating of loan loss reserves, represented a strengthening of accounting priorities, which stress the importance of the reserve account for financial statement objectivity and comparability, relative to supervisory priorities, which emphasize the role of reserves for bank solvency through changing economic environments. The ...