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Resource Allocation in Bank Supervision: Trade‐Offs and Outcomes

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  • THOMAS M. EISENBACH
  • DAVID O. LUCCA
  • ROBERT M. TOWNSEND

Abstract

We estimate a structural model of resource allocation on work hours of Federal Reserve bank supervisors to disentangle how supervisory technology, preferences, and resource constraints impact bank outcomes. We find a significant effect of supervision on bank risk and large technological scale economies with respect to bank size. Consistent with macroprudential objectives, revealed supervisory preferences disproportionately weight larger banks, especially post‐2008 when a resource reallocation to larger banks increased risk on average across all banks. Shadow cost estimates show tight resources around the financial crisis and counterfactuals indicate that binding constraints have large effects on the distribution of bank outcomes.

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  • Thomas M. Eisenbach & David O. Lucca & Robert M. Townsend, 2022. "Resource Allocation in Bank Supervision: Trade‐Offs and Outcomes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(3), pages 1685-1736, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:77:y:2022:i:3:p:1685-1736
    DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13127
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    1. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2017. "Twin Peaks And Central Banks: Economics, Political Economy And Comparative Analysis," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1768, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    2. Rafael Repullo, 2018. "Hierarchical bank supervision," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-26, March.
    3. De Chiara, Alessandro & Livio, Luca & Ponce, Jorge, 2018. "Flexible and mandatory banking supervision," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 86-104.
    4. Jean-Edouard Colliard, 2019. "Strategic Selection of Risk Models and Bank Capital Regulation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2591-2606, June.
    5. T. Carraro & Edoardo Gaffeo & Marco Gallegati, 2021. "Risk and Strategic Complementarities: Banks Behavior, Supervision and Macroprudential Policies," Working Papers 452, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    6. Carlos Altavilla & Miguel Boucinha & José-Luis Peydró & Frank Smets, 2019. "Banking supervision, monetary policy and risk-taking: Big data evidence from 15 credit registers," Economics Working Papers 1684, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 2020.
    7. Keuschnigg, Christian & Kogler, Michael, 2020. "The Schumpeterian role of banks: Credit reallocation and capital structure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Martynova, Natalya & Perotti, Enrico & Suarez, Javier, 2022. "Capital forbearance in the bank recovery and resolution game," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 884-904.
    9. Natalya Martynova & Enrico Perotti & Javier Suarez, 2019. "Bank Capital Forbearance," Working Papers wp2019_1908, CEMFI.
    10. Andreas Fuster & Matthew Plosser & James Vickery, 2018. "Does CFPB Oversight Crimp Credit?," Staff Reports 857, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. de Ramon, Sebastian & Francis, William & Milonas, Kristoffer, 2017. "An overview of the UK banking sector since the Basel Accord: insights from a new regulatory database," Bank of England working papers 652, Bank of England.
    12. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Beverly Hirtle & David O. Lucca, 2016. "Parsing the content of bank supervision," Staff Reports 770, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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