Bank reactions after capital shortfalls

Christoffer Kok and Glenn Schepens

No 1611, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: This paper investigates whether European banks have capital targets and how deviations from the target impact their equity composition and activity mix. Using quarterly data for a sample of large European banks between 2004 and 2011, we show that there are notable asymmetries in banks' reactions to deviations from optimal capital levels. Banks prefer to reshuffle risk-weighted assets or increase asset holdings when being above their optimal Tier 1 ratio, whereas they rather try to increase equity levels or reshuffle risk-weighted assets without changing asset holdings when being below target. At the same time, focusing instead on a unweighted equity ratio target, we find evidence of deleveraging and lower loan growth for undercapitalized banks during the recent financial crisis, whereas in the pre-crisis periods banks primarily reacted to deviations from their optimal target by adjusting equity levels. JEL Classification: D22, E44, G20, G21, G28

Keywords: bank capital optimisation; banking; capital structure; deleveraging; financial regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-rmg
Note: 508948
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Working Paper: Bank reactions after capital shortfalls (2013)
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