Handle with Care: Regulatory Easing in Times of COVID-19

The policy response to the COVID-19 shock included regulatory easing across many jurisdictions to facilitate the flow of credit to the economy and mitigate a further amplification of the shock through tighter financial conditions. Using an intraday event study, this paper examines how stock prices – a key driver of financial conditions – reacted to regulatory easing announcements in a sample of 18 advanced economies and 8 emerging markets. It finds that regulatory easing announcements contributed to looser financial conditions but effects varied across sectors and tools. News about regulatory easing led to lower valuations for financial sector stocks, mainly in jurisdictions with relatively lower capital buffers. These results stand in stark contrast with valuations of non-financial sector stocks, which increased in response to regulatory relief announcements, particularly in industries that are more dependent on bank financing. The effects also differed across tools. Valuations declined and financial conditions tightened following announcements related to easier bank capital regulation while equity valuation rose and financial conditions loosened after those about liquidity regulation.

Handle with Care

The policy response to the COVID-19 shock included regulatory easing across many jurisdictions to facilitate the flow of credit to the economy and mitigate a further ampli-fication of the shock through tighter financial conditions. Using an intraday event study,this paper examines how stock prices—a key driver in financial conditions—reacted to regulatory easing announcements in a sample of 18 advanced economies and 8 emerging markets. The paper finds that overall, regulatory easing announcements contributed to looser financial conditions, but effects varied across sectors and tools. Financial regulatory easing led to lower valuations for financial sector stocks, and higher valuations for non-financial sector stocks, particularly for industries that are more dependent on bank financing. Furthermore, valuations declined and financial conditions tightened following announcements related to easier bank capital regulation while equity valuation rose and financial conditions loosened after those about liquidity regulation. Effects from non-regulatory financial measures appear to be generally more muted.

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR BANK CAPITAL REGULATION

The paper analyzes the evolution of the introduction of international standards for bank capital regulation. The aim of the research is to study international standards for bank capital regulation and their impact on financial stability and sustainability of domestic banking systems. The 2007—2009 Global Financial Crisis was perhaps the greatest banking and financial crisis since bank failures and the financial panic of the Great Depression in early 1930s. According to academics and professionals, there has been much debate over the last decade as to whether the 2007—2009 banking crisis was primarily a solvency crisis or a liquidity crisis. Capital adequacy of banks today is the main indicator of increasing society’s confidence in banking systems. The flexible and balanced implementation of Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) recommendations on the assessment of bank capital adequacy is of particular importance in the context of the deepening economic crisis caused by COVID-19 quarantine restrictions. Regulation of bank capital is primarily settles by the ability to execute basic functions inherent in it. A number of shocks in connection with the crisis require the renewal and search for a new paradigm of regulation, which today is focused on achieving financial stability, overcoming pro-cyclicality, especially in the banking sector. One of the latest developments in the field of bank capital regulation has been the implementation of international banking supervision standards recommended by BCBS, which have been transformed from Basel I, Basel II, Basel III, Basel 3.5 to Basel IV. The new ideology suggests that in times of financial and economic crisis or in anticipation of growing uncertainty in the economy, it is necessary to abandon the idea of bank capital management and the creation of financial reserves to maintain liquidity and stability of financial institutions. These measures will not be able to protect the bank from default and bankruptcy. This ideology has become a new paradigm of effective banking regulation, which can be formulated as an accepted set of three vectors: risk; risk management; risk-oriented supervision.

A Macroeconomic Model With Financially Constrained Producers and Intermediaries

How much capital should financial intermediaries hold? We propose a general equilibrium model with a financial sector that makes risky long‐term loans to firms, funded by deposits from savers. Government guarantees create a role for bank capital regulation. The model captures the sharp and persistent drop in macro‐economic aggregates and credit provision as well as the sharp change in credit spreads observed during financial crises. Policies requiring intermediaries to hold more capital reduce financial fragility, reduce the size of the financial and non‐financial sectors, and lower intermediary profits. They redistribute wealth from savers to the owners of banks and non‐financial firms. Pre‐crisis capital requirements are close to optimal. Counter‐cyclical capital requirements increase welfare.

The Rise of Shadow Banking: Evidence from Capital Regulation

We investigate the connections between bank capital regulation and the prevalence of lightly regulated nonbanks (shadow banks) in the U.S. corporate loan market. For identification, we exploit a supervisory credit register of syndicated loans, loan-time fixed effects, and shocks to capital requirements arising from surprise features of the U.S. implementation of Basel III. We find that less-capitalized banks reduce loan retention, particularly among loans with higher capital requirements and at times when capital is scarce, and nonbanks step in. This reallocation is associated with important adverse effects during the 2008 crisis: loans funded by nonbanks with fragile liabilities are less likely to be rolled over and experience greater price volatility.