Search Results
Showing results 1 to 3 of approximately 3.
(refine search)
Discussion Paper
U.S. Banks' Changing Footprint at Home and Abroad
Some banks are quite simple, while others are part of complex multi-layered organizations with affiliates in many industries scattered all around the world. The latter organizations are formally called bank holding companies (BHCs). In this post, we investigate changes in BHC geography, especially the rising share of BHC affiliates in tax havens and financial secrecy jurisdictions. We examine what has happened since 2000, including the period after the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which focused attention on the size and complexity of large BHCs. Our analysis complements a growing body of work on ...
Discussion Paper
The Effects of Entering and Exiting a Credit Default Swap Index
Since their inception in 2002, credit default swap (CDS) indexes have gained tremendous popularity and become leading barometers of the credit market. Today, investors who want to hedge credit risk or to speculate can choose from a broad menu of indexes that offer protection against the default of a firm, a European sovereign, or a U.S. municipality, among others. The major CDS indexes in the U.S. are the CDX.NA.IG and the CDX.NA.HY, composed of North American investment-grade (IG) and high-yield (HY) issuers, respectively. In this post, we focus on the CDX.NA.IG index. We discuss the ...
Discussion Paper
Regulatory Changes and the Cost of Capital for Banks
In response to the financial crisis nearly a decade ago, a number of regulations were passed to improve the safety and soundness of the financial system. In this post and our related staff report, we provide a new perspective on the effect of these regulations by estimating the cost of capital for banks over the past two decades. We find that, while banks? cost of capital soared during the financial crisis, after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA), banks experienced a greater decrease in their cost of capital than nonbanks and nonbank financial intermediaries (NBFI).