IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/irvfin/v10y2010i4p485-518.html

On the Behavior and Determinants of Risk‐Based Capital Ratios: Revisiting the Evidence from UK Banking Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • WILLIAM B. FRANCIS
  • MATTHEW OSBORNE

Abstract

Using bank-level panel data from the United Kingdom, this paper investigates the factors that influence banks' choice of risk‐based capital ratios. The study focuses on evaluating the role of regulatory capital requirements. Findings indicate that such requirements, even when not binding, affect banks' capital management practices and suggest that banks maintain targeted buffers above regulatory thresholds. That behavior differs across several dimensions, including bank size, nearness to regulatory minimum, reliance on core (equity) capital and exposure to market discipline. Capital ratios also vary over the economic cycle. These findings have implications for the ongoing review of international capital standards.

Suggested Citation

  • William B. Francis & Matthew Osborne, 2010. "On the Behavior and Determinants of Risk‐Based Capital Ratios: Revisiting the Evidence from UK Banking Institutions," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 485-518, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:irvfin:v:10:y:2010:i:4:p:485-518
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1468-2443.2010.01112.x
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    2. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    3. Estrella, Arturo, 2004. "The cyclical behavior of optimal bank capital," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1469-1498, June.
    4. Jacques, Kevin & Nigro, Peter, 1997. "Risk-based capital, portfolio risk, and bank capital: A simultaneous equations approach," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 533-547.
    5. Thakor, Anjan V, 1996. "Capital Requirements, Monetary Policy, and Aggregate Bank Lending: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 279-324, March.
    6. Shrieves, Ronald E. & Dahl, Drew, 1992. "The relationship between risk and capital in commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 439-457, April.
    7. Berger, Allen N. & Herring, Richard J. & Szego, Giorgio P., 1995. "The role of capital in financial institutions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 393-430, June.
    8. Jokipii, Terhi & Milne, Alistair, 2008. "The cyclical behaviour of European bank capital buffers," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1440-1451, August.
    9. Ayuso, Juan & Perez, Daniel & Saurina, Jesus, 2004. "Are capital buffers pro-cyclical?: Evidence from Spanish panel data," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 249-264, April.
    10. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    11. Windmeijer, Frank, 2005. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 25-51, May.
    12. Lindquist, Kjersti-Gro, 2004. "Banks' buffer capital: how important is risk," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 493-513, April.
    13. Rime, Bertrand, 2001. "Capital requirements and bank behaviour: Empirical evidence for Switzerland," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 789-805, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kanga, Désiré & Murinde, Victor & Soumaré, Issouf, 2020. "Capital, risk and profitability of WAEMU banks: Does bank ownership matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    2. Marques Pereira, João André C. & Saito, Richard, 2015. "How banks respond to Central Bank supervision: Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 22-30.
    3. Anachit Bagntasarian & Emmanuel Mamatzakis, 2019. "Testing for the underlying dynamics of bank capital buffer and performance nexus," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 347-380, February.
    4. Laetitia Lepetit & Amine Tarazi & Nadia Zedek, 2012. "Ultimate Ownership Structure and Bank Regulatory Capital Adjustment: Evidence from European Commercial Banks," Working Papers hal-00918579, HAL.
    5. Syed Moudud-Ul-Huq, 2021. "The Impact of Business Cycle on Banks’ Capital Buffer, Risk and Efficiency: A Dynamic GMM Approach from a Developing Economy," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 22(4), pages 921-940, August.
    6. Affinito, Massimiliano & Tagliaferri, Edoardo, 2010. "Why do (or did?) banks securitize their loans? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 189-202, December.
    7. Umara Noreen & Fizza Alamdar & Tabassum Tariq, 2016. "Capital Buffers and Bank Risk: Empirical Study of Adjustment of Pakistani Banks," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 1798-1806.
    8. Mamatzakis, Emmanuel & Bagntasarian, Anna, 2019. "The nexus between underlying dynamics of bank capital buffer and performance," MPRA Paper 92961, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Chau H. A. Le, 2016. "Macro-financial linkages and bank behaviour: evidence from the second-round effects of the global financial crisis on East Asia," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(3), pages 365-387, December.
    10. Selim Mankaï & Aymen Belgacem, 2013. "Interactions Between Risk-Taking, Capital, and Reinsurance for Property-Liability Insurance Firms," EconomiX Working Papers 2013-23, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    11. Khurram Iftikhar & Syed Faizan Iftikhar, 2018. "The impact of business cycle on capital buffer during the period of Basel-II and Basel-III: Evidence from the Pakistani banks," International Journal of Financial Engineering (IJFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(04), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Samina RIAZ & Venus Khim-Sen LIEW & Rossazana Bt Ab RAHIM, 2019. "The Impact of Business Cycle on Pakistani Banks Capital Buffer and Portfolio Risk," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 57-71, March.
    13. Haq, Mamiza & Faff, Robert & Seth, Rama & Mohanty, Sunil, 2014. "Disciplinary tools and bank risk exposure," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 37-64.
    14. Shim, Jeungbo, 2013. "Bank capital buffer and portfolio risk: The influence of business cycle and revenue diversification," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 761-772.
    15. Horvath, B.L., 2013. "The impact of Taxation on Bank Leverage and Asset Risk," Other publications TiSEM 3e591f31-4fbc-460b-a5ed-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Faisal Abbas & Omar Masood & Shoaib Ali & Sohail Rizwan, 2021. "How Do Capital Ratios Affect Bank Risk-Taking: New Evidence From the United States," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    17. Seba Mohanty & Jitendra Mahakud, 2021. "Causal Nexus Between Liquidity Creation and Bank Capital Ratio: Evidence from India," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 15(2), pages 205-237, May.
    18. Syed Moudud-Ul-Huq, 2019. "Banks’ capital buffers, risk, and efficiency in emerging economies: are they counter-cyclical?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 9(4), pages 467-492, December.
    19. Ovi, Nafisa & Bose, Sudipta & Gunasekarage, Abeyratna & Shams, Syed, 2020. "Do the business cycle and revenue diversification matter for banks’ capital buffer and credit risk: Evidence from ASEAN banks," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    20. Hessou, Helyoth & Lai, Van Son, 2017. "Basel III capital buffer requirements and credit union prudential regulation: Canadian evidence," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 92-110.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:irvfin:v:10:y:2010:i:4:p:485-518. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1369-412X .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.