Search Results
Discussion Paper
Stress Test Success and Bank Opacity
In contemplating the recent financial panic, it is easy to get lost in the weeds of repo markets and asset-backed securities and lose sight of the fact that, at the fundamental level, the panic was about inadequate information. Investors were uncertain about what particular assets were worth, and they were uncertain about which banks were exposed to those assets and to what degree. They were also uncertain about how the government would handle undercapitalized banks. It was against this background that the Treasury announced in February 2009 that the nineteen largest U.S. bank holding ...
Journal Article
Resilience of Community Banks in the Time of COVID-19
Stress tests in December 2020 showed that the largest U.S. banks had strong capital levels and could continue to lend to households and businesses under hypothetical severe recessions. Assessing thousands of small community banks against similar criteria suggests that, while about one-fifth could fall below adequate capitalization, only a handful of those risk becoming insolvent. Overall, this is a reassuring view for small banks and their communities, suggesting that the risk of widespread bank failures leading to financial instability appears to be small.
Working Paper
Can We Take the “Stress” Out of Stress Testing? Applications of Generalized Structural Equation Modeling to Consumer Finance
Financial firms, and banks in particular, rely heavily on complex suites of interrelated statistical models in their risk management and business reporting infrastructures. Statistical model infrastructures are often developed using a piecemeal approach to model building, in which different components are developed and validated separately. This type of modeling framework has significant limitations at each stage of the model management life cycle, from development and documentation to validation, production, and redevelopment. We propose an empirical framework, spurred by recent developments ...
Working Paper
Measuring capital adequacy supervisory stress tests in a Basel world
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 capital, and the way it creates countercyclical capital buffers. However, this paper also emphasizes the extent to which stress tests add value will depend upon the exercise of supervisor discretion in the design of stress scenarios. Whether supervisors will use this discretion more effectively than they ...
Report
Supervisory stress tests
This article describes the background, design choices and particular details of stress tests used as part of an overall supervisory regime; that is, their formal integration into the process of the ongoing prudential supervision of banks and other large financial institutions. We then describe how the U.S. CCAR/DFAST regime is designed and what that means for the macroprudential vs. microprudential nature of the U.S. exercises. We argue routine stress tests have the potential to substantially change the nature of the supervisory process. In addition, we argue that a great deal depends on the ...
Discussion Paper
Are BHCs Mimicking the Fed's Stress Test Results?
In March, the Federal Reserve and thirty-one large bank holding companies (BHCs) disclosed their annual Dodd-Frank Act stress test (DFAST) results. This is the third year in which both the BHCs and the Fed have published their projections. In a previous post, we looked at whether the Fed’s and the BHCs’ stress test results are converging in the aggregate and found mixed results. In this post, we look at stress test projections made by individual BHCs. If the Fed’s projections are very different from a BHC’s in one year, do the BHC projections change in the following year to close this ...
Speech
Testimony on improving financial institution supervision: examining and addressing regulatory capture
Testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Subcommittee.
Discussion Paper
CCAR: More than a Stress Test
The Federal Reserve recently released the results of its latest stress test of large bank holding companies (BHCs). While the stress test results have received a lot of attention, they are just one part of a much larger effort by the Federal Reserve to ensure that these large BHCs have robust processes for determining how much capital they need to maintain access to funding and continue to serve as credit intermediaries, even under stressed conditions. In this post, I describe these larger efforts and the role that the stress test plays in them.
Working Paper
The Failure of supervisory stress testing: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and OFHEO
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, policymakers in the United States and elsewhere have adopted stress testing as a central tool for supervising large, complex, financial institutions and promoting financial stability. Although supervisory stress testing may confer substantial benefits, such tests are vulnerable to model risk. This paper studies the risk-based capital stress test conducted by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that are central to the U.S. housing finance ...
Report
Evaluating the information in the Federal Reserve stress tests
We present evidence that the Federal Reserve stress tests produce information about both the stress-tested bank holding companies and the overall state of the banking industry. Our evidence goes beyond a standard event study, which cannot differentiate between small abnormal returns and large, but opposite?signed, abnormal stock returns. We find that stress test disclosures are associated with significantly higher absolute abnormal returns, as well as higher abnormal trading volume. More levered and riskier holding companies seem to be more affected by the stress test information. We find no ...