How Cyclical Is Bank Capital?

Joseph Haubrich

No 1504, Working Papers (Old Series) from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Abstract: The alleged pro-cyclicality of bank capital (high in good times, low in bad) has received some blame for the recent financial crisis. Others blame the countercyclicality of capital regulations: too low in high times and too high in bad. To address this problem, Basel III has introduced countercyclical capital buffers for large banks. But just how cyclical is bank capital? We look at the question from several vantage points, using both detailed recent data on risk-weighted assets and several sources of annual data going back to 1834. To help understand the historical data, we provide a short summary of capital concepts and regulation from early America to the present.

JEL-codes: E32 G21 G28 N20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2015-03-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-cfn, nep-mac and nep-rmg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-201504r1 Full text (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: How Cyclical Is Bank Capital? (2020)
Working Paper: How Cyclical Is Bank Capital? (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1504

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