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Working Paper
The Theory of Financial Stability Meets Reality
A large literature at the intersection of economics and finance offers prescriptions for regulating banks to increase financial stability. This literature abstracts from the discretion that accounting standards give banks over financial reporting, creating a gap between the information assumed to be available to regulators in models of optimal regulation and the information available to regulators in reality. We bridge insights from the economics, finance, and accounting literatures to synthesize knowledge about the design and implementation of bank regulation and identify areas where more ...
Working Paper
The Effect of Possible EU Diversification Requirements on the Risk of Banks’ Sovereign Bond Portfolios
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. First, we capture the dependence structure of European countries? sovereign risks and identify the common factors driving European sovereign CDS spreads by means of an independent component analysis. We then analyze the risk and diversification in the sovereign bond portfolios of the largest European banks ...
Journal Article
Reciprocal Deposits and the Banking Turmoil of 2023
Reciprocal deposits are deposits exchanged between banks to effectively increase deposit insurance coverage. Their use grew significantly during the banking turmoil of 2023. This Economic Commentary describes what they are, their connection to brokered deposits, how their legal treatment has changed over time, and which banks use them the most. It also discusses longer-run trends in uninsured deposits.
Newsletter
Digital Innovation, Generational Shifts, and the Transformation of Financial Services
The Chicago Fed?s Supervision and Regulation Department and DePaul University?s Center for Financial Services held their 11th annual risk conference on April 4?5, 2018. The conference brought together financial industry professionals, academics, and regulators to discuss the technological and generational transformation of financial services and evolving issues concerning risk management and bank regulation
Working Paper
Optimal Design of Contingent Capital
This paper proposes a parsimonious framework for designing contingent capital contracts (CoCos). CoCos designed this way (i) are either optimal or incentive compatible for equity holders, (ii) implement a unique equilibrium, and (iii) result in an optimal capital structure for the firm. We consider CoCos with equity conversion and write-down modalities. Equity conversion CoCos are optimal; write-down CoCos are incentive-compatible. Both types of CoCos can be implemented by exogenously specifying a capital ratio rule that triggers conversion and, hence, qualify as additional tier 1 (AT1) ...
Working Paper
Insider bank runs: community bank fragility and the financial crisis of 2007
From 2007 to 2010, more than 200 community banks in the United States failed. Many of these failed community banking organizations (CBOs) held less than $1 billion in total assets. As economic conditions worsen, banking organizations are expected to preserve capital to withstand unexpected losses. This study examines CBOs prior to failure or becoming problem institutions to understand if, on average, a run on capital by insiders via dividend payouts led to greater financial fragility at the onset of the crisis. We use a control group of similar-sized banks that did not fail or become problem ...
Working Paper
Are Basel's Capital Surcharges for Global Systemically Important Banks Too Small?
The Basel Committee promulgates bank regulatory standards that many major economies enact to a significant extent. One element of the Basel III capital standards is a system of capital surcharges for global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). If the purpose of the surcharges is to ensure the survival of G-SIBs through serious crises (like the 2007-09 financial crisis) without extraordinary public assistance, our analysis suggests that current surcharges are too low because of three shortcomings: (1) the Basel system underestimates the probability that a G-SIB can fail, (2) the Basel system ...
Newsletter
A New Era of Community Banking
The 11th annual Community Bankers Symposium, cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), was held at the Chicago Fed on November 18, 2016. This article summarizes key presentations and discussions at the event.
Working Paper
Disclosure of stress test results
Should regulatory bank examinations be made public? Regulators have argued that the confidentiality of the examination process promotes frank exchanges between bankers and examiners and that public disclosure of examination results could have a chilling effect. I examine the tradeoffs in a world in which examination results can be kept confidential, but regulatory interventions are observable by market participants, as they typically are for stress tests. Inducing banks to communicate truthfully requires regulators to engage in forbearance, which is priced into banks? uninsured debt and ...
Working Paper
Regulating Bank Portfolio Choice Under Asymmetric Information
Regulating bank risk-taking is challenging since banks know more than regulators about the risks of their portfolios and can make adjustments to game regulations. To address this problem, I build a tractable model that incorporates this information asymmetry. The model is flexible enough to encompass many regulatory tools, although I focus on taxes. These taxes could also be interpreted as reflecting the shadow costs of other regulations, such as capital requirements. I show that linear risk-sensitive taxes should not generally be set more conservatively to address asymmetric information. I ...