Search Results
Conference Paper
Payday lending: do the costs justify the price?
Conference Paper
Market forces at work in the banking industry: evidence from the capital buildup of the 1990s
We document the build-up of regulatory and market equity capital in large U.S. bank holding companies between 1986 and 2000. During this time, large banking firms raised their capital ratios to the highest levels in more than 50 years. Since 1995, essentially none of the 100 largest U.S. banking firms have been constrained by regulatory capital standards. Nor do these firms appear to be protecting themselves explicitly against falling below supervisory minimum capital standards. Variation in bank equity ratios reliably reflects portfolio risk, and we attribute the capital increase to enhanced ...
Working Paper
Comparing market and supervisory assessments of bank performance: who knows what when?
We compare the timeliness and accuracy of government supervisors versus market participants in assessing the condition of large U.S. bank holding companies. We find that supervisors and bond rating agencies both have some prior information that is useful to the other. In contrast, supervisory assessments and equity market indicators are not strongly interrelated. We also find that supervisory assessments are much less accurate overall than both bond and equity market assessments in predicting future changes in performance, but supervisors may be more accurate when inspections are recent. To ...
Working Paper
How do large banking organizations manage their capital ratio?
Large banking organizations in the U.S. hold significantly more equity capital than the minimum required by bank regulators. This capital cushion has built up during a period of unusual profitability for the banking system, leading some observers to argue that the capital merely reflects recent profits. Others contend that the banks deliberately choose target capital levels based on their risk exposures and their counterparties? sensitivities to default risk. In either case, the existence of ?excess? capital makes it difficult to observe how banks manage their capital levels, particularly in ...
Working Paper
Market evidence on the opaqueness of banking firms' assets.
We assess the market microstructure properties of U.S. banking firms' equity, to determine whether they exhibit more or less evidence of asset opaqueness than similar-sized nonbanking firms. The evidence strongly indicates that large banks (traded on NASDAQ) trade much less frequently despite microstructure characteristics. Problem (noncurrent) loans tend to raise the frequency with which the bank's equity trades, as well as the equity's return volatility. The implications for regulatory policy and future market microstructure research are discussed.
Conference Paper
Pricing deposit insurance when the insurer measures risk with error
Journal Article
The Federal Home Loan Bank system : the \"other\" housing GSE.
Founded in 1932, the twelve Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) have historically provided long-term funding to specialized mortgage lenders. But legislative changes in the wake of the 1980s? thrift crises spurred the FHLBs to expand in both size and scope. For example, FHLB balance sheets now also include a substantial investment in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, and the attendant interest rate risk has created financial and accounting difficulties at some of the FHLBs. ; Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the FHLB System is a government-sponsored enterprise that funds itself largely ...