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A Q-Theory of Banks

Author

Listed:
  • Juliane Beganau
  • Saki Bigio
  • Jeremy Majerovitz
  • Matias Vieyra

Abstract

We document five facts about banks: (1) market and book leverage diverged during the 2008 crisis, (2) Tobin's Q predicts future profitability, (3) neither book nor market leverage appears constrained, (4) banks maintain a market-leverage target that is reached slowly, and (5) pre-crisis, leverage was predominantly adjusted by liquidating assets. After the crisis, the adjustment shifted towards retaining earnings. We present a Q-theory where notions of leverage differ because book accounting is slow to acknowledge loan losses. We estimate the model and show that it reproduces the facts. We examine counterfactuals where different accounting rules produce novel policy tradeoffs.

Suggested Citation

  • Juliane Beganau & Saki Bigio & Jeremy Majerovitz & Matias Vieyra, 2021. "A Q-Theory of Banks," Staff Working Papers 21-44, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:21-44
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Faria-e-Castro, Miguel & Paul, Pascal & Sánchez, Juan M., 2024. "Evergreening," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
      • Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Pascal Paul & Juan M. Sanchez, 2021. "Evergreening," Working Papers 2021-012, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Aug 2023.
      • Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Pascal Paul & Juan M. Sanchez, 2022. "Evergreening," Working Paper Series 2022-14, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    2. Reiter, Michael & Zessner-Spitzenberg, Leopold, 2023. "Long-term bank lending and the transfer of aggregate risk," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Kirstin Hubrich & Daniel F. Waggoner, 2022. "The transmission of financial shocks and leverage of financial institutions: An endogenous regime switching framework," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-034, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Bianca Barbaro & Patrizio Tirelli, 2023. "Forbearance vs foreclosure in a general equilibrium model," Working Papers 516, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Coronavirus disease (COVID-19); Domestic demand and components; Payment clearing and settlement systems; Recent economic and financial developments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

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