Banking Regulation in Hard Times: Business Cycles, Bank Capital, and the Bank Failure - Credit Crunch Dilemma

Thomas Bernauer and Vally Koubi

Journal of Public Policy, 2002, vol. 22, issue 1, 61-75

Abstract: Restrictive policies aimed at reducing the likelihood of bank failures during recessions tend to increase the probability of a credit crunch. We examine whether this policy-dilemma is empirically observable, and whether policy-makers concentrate more on preventing bank failures or avoiding a credit crunch. We find that although capital-asset ratios in the total population of US banks in the 1990s are pro-cyclical, the most vulnerable banks (substantially undercapitalized ones) tend to increase their capital-asset ratios during recessions. These findings suggest that policy-makers are indeed experiencing a dilemma, and that they try to balance the relative probabilities of the two evils: they force the weakest banks to improve their capital-asset ratios while mitigating the risk of a credit crunch by accepting a reduction in the capital-asset ratios of less vulnerable banks.

Date: 2002
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