Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Fallacies, Irrelevant Facts, and Myths in the Discussion of Capital Regulation: Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive

Contents:

Author Info

  • Admati, Anat R.

    (Stanford University)

  • DeMarzo, Peter M.

    (Stanford University)

  • Hellwig, Martin F.

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods)

  • Pfleiderer, Paul

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

We examine the pervasive view that "equity is expensive," which leads to claims that high capital requirements are costly and would affect credit markets adversely. We find that arguments made to support this view are either fallacious, irrelevant, or very weak. For example, the return on equity contains a risk premium that must go down if banks have more equity. It is thus incorrect to assume that the required return on equity remains fixed as capital requirements increase. It is also incorrect to translate higher taxes paid by banks to a social cost. Policies that subsidize debt and indirectly penalize equity through taxes and implicit guarantees are distortive. Any desirable public subsidies to banks' activities should be given directly and not in ways that encourage leverage. Finally, suggestions that high leverage serves a necessary disciplining role are based on inadequate theory lacking empirical support. We conclude that bank equity is not socially expensive, and that high leverage is not necessary for banks to perform all their socially valuable functions, including lending, taking deposits and issuing money-like securities. To the contrary, better capitalized banks suffer fewer distortions in lending decisions and would perform better. The fact that banks choose high leverage does not imply that this is socially optimal, and, viewed from an ex ante perspective, high leverage may not even be privately optimal for banks. Setting equity requirements significantly higher than the levels currently proposed would entail large social benefits and minimal, if any, social costs. Approaches based on equity dominate alternatives, including contingent capital. To achieve better capitalization quickly and efficiently and prevent disruption to lending, regulators must actively control equity payouts and issuance. If remaining challenges are addressed, capital regulation can be a powerful tool for enhancing the role of banks in the economy.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP2065&86.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Stanford University, Graduate School of Business in its series Research Papers with number 2065.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecl:stabus:2065

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015
Phone: (650) 723-2146
Fax: (650)725-6750
Email:
Web page: http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Christian Wolff & Theo Vermaelen & George Pennacchi, 2010. "Contingent Capital: The Case for COERCs," LSF Research Working Paper Series 10-08, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
  2. Hellwig, Christian, 2002. "Public Information, Private Information, and the Multiplicity of Equilibria in Coordination Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 191-222, December.
  3. C. Goodhart & M. Peiris & D. Tsomocos & A. Vardoulakis, 2010. "On dividend restrictions and the collapse of the interbank market," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 455-473, October.
  4. Hamid Mehran, 0. "Bank Capital and Value in the Cross-Section," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(4), pages 1019-1067.
  5. Adrian, Tobias & Shin, Hyun Song, 2010. "Liquidity and leverage," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 418-437, July.
  6. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl & Danny Yagan, 2009. "Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 147-74, Fall.
  7. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2000. "A Theory of Bank Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2431-2465, December.
  8. Rochet, Jean Charles & Vives, Xavier, 2002. "Coordination Failures and the Lender of Last Resort: Was Bagehot Right After All?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3233, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. Gorton, Gary & Pennacchi, George, 1990. " Financial Intermediaries and Liquidity Creation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 49-71, March.
  10. Gary B. Gorton & Andrew Metrick, 2009. "Securitized Banking and the Run on Repo," NBER Working Papers 15223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Calomiris, Charles W & Kahn, Charles M, 1991. "The Role of Demandable Debt in Structuring Optimal Banking Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 497-513, June.
  12. Acharya, Viral V & Mehran, Hamid & Thakor, Anjan, 2012. "Caught between Scylla and Charybdis? Regulating bank leverage when there is rent-seeking and risk-shifting," CEPR Discussion Papers 8822, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  13. repec:oup:rfinst:v:25:y::i:6:p:1799-1843 is not listed on IDEAS
  14. Zoltan Pozsar & Tobias Adrian & Adam Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky, 2010. "Shadow banking," Staff Reports 458, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  15. Thomas Gehrig, 1996. "Market Structure, Monitoring and Capital Adequacy Regulation," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 132(IV), pages 685-702, December.
  16. Patrick Bolton & Hamid Mehran & Joel Shapiro, 2010. "Executive compensation and risk taking," Staff Reports 456, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  17. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Martin Oehmke, 2010. "The Maturity Rat Race," NBER Working Papers 16607, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  18. Schnabel, Isabel, 2002. "The German Twin Crisis of 1931," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 02-48, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim & Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
  19. Isabel Schnabel, 2005. "The Role of Liquidity and Implicit Guarantees in the German Twin Crisis of 1931," Working Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2005_5, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Sudipto Bhattacharya & Charles Goodhart & Dimitrios Tsomocos & Alexandros Vardoulakis, 2011. "Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis and the Leverage Cycle," FMG Special Papers sp202, Financial Markets Group.
  2. von Furstenberg, George M., 2011. "Contingent capital to strengthen the private safety net for financial institutions: Cocos to the rescue?," Discussion Paper Series 2: Banking and Financial Studies 2011,01, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre.
  3. Naude, Wim, 2009. "The Global Economic Crisis after One Year: Is a New Paradigm for Recovery in Developing Countries Emerging?," Working Papers UNU-WIDER UNU Policy Brie, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
  4. Michal Kowalik, 2011. "Countercyclical capital regulation: should bank regulators use rules or discretion?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q II.
  5. Friedrich L. Sell, 2012. "Some of the Pros and Cons of Central Banking Supervision by the ECB," CESifo Forum, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(4), pages 40-45, December.
  6. Enrico Berkes & Ugo Panizza & Jean-Louis Arcand, 2012. "Too Much Finance?," IMF Working Papers 12/161, International Monetary Fund.
  7. Alfredo Martin-Oliver & Sonia Ruano & Vicente Salas-Fumas, 2013. "Banks' Equity Capital Frictions, Capital Ratios, and Interest Rates: Evidence from Spanish Banks," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(1), pages 183-225, March.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:stabus:2065

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.