Inconsistent Regulators: Evidence From Banking

Sumit Agarwal, David Lucca, Amit Seru and Francesco Trebbi

No 17736, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: US state chartered commercial banks are supervised alternately by state and federal regulators. Each regulator supervises a given bank for a fixed time period according to a predetermined rotation schedule. We use unique data to examine differences between federal and state regulators for these banks. Federal regulators are significantly less lenient, downgrading supervisory ratings about twice as frequently as state supervisors. Under federal regulators, banks report higher nonperforming loans, more delinquent loans, higher regulatory capital ratios, and lower ROA. There is a higher frequency of bank failures and problem-bank rates in states with more lenient supervision relative to the federal benchmark. Some states are more lenient than others. Regulatory capture by industry constituents and supervisory staff characteristics can explain some of these differences. These findings suggest that inconsistent oversight can hamper the effectiveness of regulation by delaying corrective actions and by inducing costly variability in operations of regulated entities.

JEL-codes: G21 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban and nep-reg
Note: CF ME POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Published as Sumit Agarwal & David Lucca & Amit Seru & Francesco Trebbi, 2014. "Inconsistent Regulators: Evidence from Banking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(2), pages 889-938.

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