27 posts on "financial stability"
November 14, 2018
Ten Years after the Crisis, Is the Banking System Safer?
In the wake of the 2007-09 financial crisis, a wide range of new regulations have been introduced to improve the stability of the banking system. But has the banking system become safer since the crisis? In this post, we provide a new perspective on this question by employing four analytical models, each measuring a different aspect of banking system vulnerability, to evaluate how system stability has evolved over the past decade.
Posted at 7:00 am in Financial Institutions | Permalink
July 16, 2018
Tax Reform’s Impact on Bank and Corporate Cyclicality
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) is expected to increase after-tax profits for most companies, primarily by lowering the top corporate statutory tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. At the same time, the TCJA provides less favorable treatment of net operating losses and limits the deductibility of net interest expense. We explain how the latter set of changes may heighten bank and corporate borrower cyclicality by making bank capital and default risk for highly levered corporations more sensitive to economic downturns.
November 9, 2016
Performance Bonds for Bankers: Taking Aim at Misconduct
Given the long list of problems that have emerged in banks over the past several years, it is time to consider performance bonds for bankers. Performance bonds are used to ensure that appropriate actions are taken by a party when monitoring or enforcement is expensive. A simple example is a security deposit on an apartment rental. The risk of losing the deposit motivates renters to take care of the apartment, relieving the landlord of the need to monitor the premises. Although not quite as simple as a security deposit, performance bonds for bankers could provide more incentive for bankers to take better care of our financial system.
Posted at 7:00 am in Corporate Finance, Expectations, Financial Markets, Regulation | Permalink | Comments (2)
October 24, 2016
Are Banks Being Roiled by Oil?
Profits and employment in the oil and natural gas extraction industry have fallen significantly since 2014, reflecting a sustained decline in energy prices. In this post, we look at how these tremors are affecting banks that operate in energy industry–intensive regions of the United States. We find that banks in the “oil patch” have experienced a significant rise in delinquencies on commercial and industrial loans. So far though, there appears to be limited evidence of spillovers to other types of loans and no evidence of widespread bank losses or failures in these regions.
February 2, 2015
Bank Capital and Risk: Cautionary or Precautionary?
Do riskier banks have more capital? Banking companies with more equity capital are better protected against failure, all else equal, because they can absorb more losses before becoming insolvent.
June 11, 2012
Money Market Funds and Systemic Risk
On September 16, 2008, Reserve Primary Fund, a money market fund (MMF) with $65 billion in assets under management, announced that losses in its portfolio had caused the value of shares in the fund to drop from $1.00 to $0.97.
March 30, 2011
Why Do Central Banks Have Discount Windows?
Though not literally a window any longer, the “discount window” refers to the facilities that central banks, acting as lender of last resort, use to provide liquidity to commercial banks. While the need for a discount window and lender of last resort has been debated, the basic rationale for their existence is that circumstances can arise, such as bank runs and panics, when even fundamentally sound banks cannot raise liquidity on short notice. Massive discount window borrowing in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States clearly illustrates the importance of a discount window even in a modern economy. In this post, we discuss the classical rationale for the discount window, some debate surrounding it, and the challenges that the “stigma” associated with borrowing at the discount window poses for the effectiveness of the discount window.
Posted at 10:03 am in Banks, Central Bank, Financial Institutions, Lender of Last Resort | Permalink
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