Back to the Future: The Nature of Regulatory Capital Requirements

This paper compares the current regulatory capital requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) and the 10-percent leverage ratio, as proposed by the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. House of Representatives' Financial CHOICE Act (FCA). We find that the majority of U.S. banks would not qualify for an "off-ramp"option—where regulatory relief is offered to FCA qualifying banks (QBOs)—unless considerable amounts of capital are added, and that large banks are much closer to the proposed leverage threshold and, therefore, are more likely to stand to gain from regulatory relief. The paper identifies an important moral hazard problem that arises due to the QBO optionality, where banks are likely to increase the riskiness of their asset portfolio and qualify for the FCA “off-ramp” relief with unintended effects on financial stability.
Publication date: August 2017
ISBN: 9781484313817
$18.00
Add to Cart by clicking price of the language and format you'd like to purchase
Available Languages and Formats
English
Prices in red indicate formats that are not yet available but are forthcoming.
Topics covered in this book

This title contains information about the following subjects. Click on a subject if you would like to see other titles with the same subjects.

Banking sector , regulatory requirements , Dodd-Frank Act , Financial CHOICE Act , capital adequacy , leverage ratio , liquidity standards , moral hazard , regulatory arbitrage

Summary