Cyclical Implications of Changing Bank Capital Requirements in a Macroeconomic Framework

There is a widespread view that bank capital requirements should be loosened during recessions and tightened during expansions to avoid excessive credit and output swings. This view is based on a partial analysis that ignores the effects of capital requirement policies on the saving decisions of households, and, through this channel, on bank loans and output. We present an intertemporal general equilibrium framework that accounts for such effects and evaluate the optimal responses to loan supply and productivity (loan demand) shocks. In contrast to the standard view, we show that, when loan supply is reduced, increasing the capital requirement allows a faster recovery of households' savings, loans, and output than a flat capital requirement policy. When productivity (loan demand) is reduced, lowering the capital requirement facilitates households' dissaving and amplifies the output decline, but enhances welfare. Finally, we show that if productivity reductions are anticipated-rather than unanticipated-by regulators, lowering the capital requirement preemptively enhances welfare through greater intertemporal smoothing of households' consumption and deposit holdings.
Publication date: August 2005
ISBN: 9781451861877
$15.00
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.

Banks and Banking , Insurance - Risk Assessment and Management , regulation , capital requirement , banking , bank capital , Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy , Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation

Summary