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Working Paper
The devil's in the tail: residential mortgage finance and the U.S. Treasury
This paper seeks to contribute to the U.S. housing finance reform conversation by providing a critical assessment of the various types of policy proposals that have been offered. There appears to be a broad consensus to maintain explicit government guarantees for certain narrowly defined borrower populations, such as Federal Housing Administration insurance guarantees for low- and moderate-income and first-time homebuyers. However, the expected role of the federal government in the broader housing finance system is in dispute. The expected role ranges from no role to insuring against only ...
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 ...
Discussion Paper
Bank Supervisory Goals versus Monetary Policy Implementation
The global financial crisis of 2007–09 revealed substantial weaknesses in large banks' capital adequacy and liquidity. Bank regulators responded with a variety of prudential measures intended to strengthen both. However, these prudential measures resulted in conflicts with the implementation of monetary policy that helped alter the way the Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy. I review three such conflicts: regulation inhibiting interest on excess reserves arbitrage starting in 2008, regulation inhibiting banks' operations in the repo market in 2019, and regulation inhibiting their ...
Journal Article
Profits in `85: large banks gain while others continue to lag
Working Paper
Cross-border banking on the two sides of the Atlantic: does it have an impact on bank crisis management?
In the United States and the European Union (EU), political incentives to oppose cross-border banking have been strong in spite of the measurable benefits to the real economy from breaking down geographic barriers. Even a federal-level supervisor and safety net are not by themselves sufficient to incentivizing cross-border banking although differences in the institutional set-up are reflected in the way the two areas responded to the crisis. The U.S. response was a coordinated response, and the cost of resolving banks was borne at the national level. Moreover, the Federal Deposit Insurance ...
Journal Article
F.Y.I. commercial bank profitability: some disturbing trends
Banks' Accumulated Credit Losses in the First Quarter
The aggregate allowance for credit losses (ACL) at a set of large banks increased by 65 percent in the first quarter of 2020.1 The increase was due in approximately equal parts to two developments. First, the banks increased their ACL on January 1 to conform to a change in the method of estimating credit losses, from the incurred loss model to current expected credit loss (CECL). Second, the banks increased their ACL to cover an increase in expected credit losses. The magnitude of the ACL increase—commonly referred to as a "build"—at each bank depends on a variety of factors, but banks ...
Journal Article
The potential for portfolio diversification in financial services
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act sweeps away most of the barriers limiting the affiliation of banks with nonbank financial services providers. The focus now shifts to financial services executives who must decide which combinations provide the best opportunities to increase shareholder wealth. Existing empirical evidence suggests that an important consideration in this decision is the potential gain from portfolio diversification into new activities. The empirical evidence also suggests that the potential for such gain clearly exists. ; This article builds on earlier studies, in particular updating ...
Working Paper
When target CEOs contract with acquirers: evidence from bank mergers and acquisitions
This paper investigates the impact of the target chief executive officer?s (CEO) postmerger position on the purchase premium and target shareholders? abnormal returns around the announcement of the deal in a sample of bank mergers during the period 1990?2004. We find evidence that the target shareholders? returns are negatively related to the postmerger position of their CEO. However, these lower returns are not matched by higher returns to the acquirer?s shareholders, suggesting little or no wealth transfers. Additionally, our evidence suggests that the target CEO becoming a senior officer ...
Journal Article
Banks' responses to binding regulatory capital requirements
Since the early 1980s U.S. bank regulators have focused increasingly on the adequacy of banks' capital ratios. This article begins with a review of the changes to U.S. capital regulations and theoretical models for determining banks' capital strategy. The authors then survey numerous studies that examine banks' responses, and the costs associated with their responses, to these regulations. ; The authors categorize banks' responses into two primary types. The first of these, termed cosmetic changes to the capital ratio, may be achieved in one of two ways: a bank may reduce its total assets ...