Banking-on-the-Average Rules

Hans Gersbach and Volker Hahn

No 7819, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a new requirement for bank capital: banking-on-the-average rules. Under these rules a bank?s required level of equity capital is monotonically increasing in the realized equity capital of its peers. In a simple model we illustrate the workings of banking-on-the-average rules. We show that in booms these rules can prevent banks from taking excessive risks. Moreover, they alleviate the socially harmful procyclicality of conventional equity-capital rules, which may induce banks to cut back excessively on lending. Finally, we argue that under these rules prudent banks can impose prudency on other banks. In addition, banking-on-the-average rules ensure the build-up of bank equity capital in booms and thus avoid excessive leverage.

Keywords: Banking crisis; Banking on the average; Banking system; Equity-capital requirements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7819 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Banking-on-the-Average Rules (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7819

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7819

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().