Search Results
Working Paper
Bank Liquidity and Capital Regulation in General Equilibrium
We develop a nonlinear dynamic general equilibrium model with a banking sector and use it to study the macroeconomic impact of introducing a minimum liquidity standard for banks on top of existing capital adequacy requirements. The model generates a distribution of bank sizes arising from differences in banks' ability to generate revenue from loans and from occasionally binding capital and liquidity constraints. Under our baseline calibration, imposing a liquidity requirement would lead to a steady-state decrease of about 3 percent in the amount of loans made, an increase in banks' holdings ...
Report
Government Guarantees and the Valuation of American Banks
Banks' ratio of the market value to book value of their equity was close to 1 until the 1990s, then more than doubled during the 1996-2007 period, and fell again to values close to 1 after the 2008 financial crisis. Sarin and Summers (2016) and Chousakos and Gorton (2017) argue that the drop in banks' market-to-book ratio since the crisis is due to a loss in bank franchise value or profitability. In this paper we argue that banks' market-to-book ratio is the sum of two components: franchise value and the value of government guarantees. We empirically decompose the ratio between these two ...
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
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
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 ...
Discussion Paper
The Effects of Post-Crisis Banking Reforms
The financial crisis of 2007-08 exposed many limitations of the regulatory architecture of the U.S. financial system. In an attempt to mitigate these limitations, there has been a wave of regulatory reforms in the post-crisis period, especially in the banking sector. These include tighter bank capital and liquidity rules; new resolution procedures for failed banks; the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency; greater transparency in money market funds; and a move to central clearing of derivatives, among other measures. As these reforms have been finalized and implemented, a ...
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
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
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 ...
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