IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ysm/ypfsfc/v7y2025i3p20-49.html

Stressing the Stress Tests

Author

Abstract

In the spring of 2023, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank failed, owing to predictable rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. It's clear from these recent events that the current US stress-testing system is ill-suited to mitigate risk associated with the banking system, especially when looking at smaller regional banks that aren't subjugated to annual stress testing. Stress testing as a regulatory tool is also exposed to significant legal risks following recent Supreme Court jurisprudence that draws into question the viability of the status quo. Today, regulators and other interested parties must change tacks to craft a stress testing regime that is fit for purpose. This article seeks to inform that debate by laying out key features of a successful stress testing program against which we assess the current regime in the United States. We make four recommendations: (1) using multiple scenarios to allow exploration of a wider set of risks; (2) disclosing (stressed) fair value for the assessment of all securities held on banks' balance sheets; (3) stress testing of funding and liquidity risk; and (4) subjecting more banks to the stress tests. Taken together, these reforms would usefully improve the dynamism of the financial regulatory regime.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarin, Natasha & Schuermann, Til, 2025. "Stressing the Stress Tests," Journal of Financial Crises, Yale Program on Financial Stability (YPFS), vol. 7(3), pages 20-49, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ysm:ypfsfc:v:7:y:2025:i:3:p:20-49
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1666&context=journal-of-financial-crises
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephan Luck & Matthew Plosser, 2024. "Deposits and the March 2023 Banking Crisis—A Retrospective," Liberty Street Economics 20240327, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. Paul Glasserman & Gowtham Tangirala, 2015. "Are the Federal Reserve's Stress Test Results Predictable?," Working Papers 15-02, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    3. Beatty, Anne & Liao, Scott, 2014. "Financial accounting in the banking industry: A review of the empirical literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 339-383.
    4. Natasha Sarin & Lawrence H. Summers, 2016. "Understanding Bank Risk through Market Measures," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(2 (Fall)), pages 57-127.
    5. Samuel G. Hanson & Victoria Ivashina & Laura Nicolae & Jeremy C. Stein & Adi Sunderam & Daniel K. Tarullo, 2024. "The Evolution of Banking in the 21st Century: Evidence and Regulatory Implications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 55(1 (Spring), pages 343-411.
    6. Natasha Sarin & Lawrence H. Summers, 2016. "Understanding Bank Risk through Market Measures," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(2 (Fall)), pages 57-127.
    7. Itamar Drechsler & Alexi Savov & Philipp Schnabl, 2021. "Banking on Deposits: Maturity Transformation without Interest Rate Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1091-1143, June.
    8. Andreas Fuster & James Vickery, 2018. "Regulation and risk shuffling in bank securities portfolios," Staff Reports 851, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    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. Mehran, Hamid & Patel, Ajay & Sorokina, Nonna, 2025. "Are listed banks riskier than private banks?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Nakashima, Kiyotaka & Ogawa, Toshiaki, 2020. "The Impacts of Strengthening Regulatory Surveillance on Bank Behavior: A Dynamic Analysis from Incomplete to Complete Enforcement of Capital Regulation in Microprudential Policy," MPRA Paper 99938, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Ogawa, Toshiaki, 2022. "Welfare implications of bank capital requirements under dynamic default decisions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    4. Clark, Brian & Jones, Jonathan & Malmquist, David, 2023. "Leverage and the cost of capital for U.S. banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    5. Killins, Robert N. & Egly, Peter V. & Batabyal, Sourav, 2021. "The impact of the yield curve on bank equity returns: Evidence from Canada," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 319-329.
    6. Tweneboah Senzu, Emmanuel, 2019. "Theoretical perspective of dynamic credit risk analysis and lending model; effective to enterprises of fragile economy," MPRA Paper 91789, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Kohlscheen, Emanuel & Takáts, Előd, 2021. "What can commercial property performance reveal about bank valuations?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    8. Krettek, Jonas, 2025. "Market reactions to the Basel reforms: Implications for shareholders, creditors, and taxpayers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    9. Simoens, Mathieu & Vennet, Rudi Vander, 2021. "Bank performance in Europe and the US: A divergence in market-to-book ratios," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    10. Sophia Velez & Michael Neubert & Daphne Halkias, 2020. "Banking Finance Experts Consensus on Compliance in US Bank Holding Companies: An e-Delphi Study," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-14, February.
    11. Acharya, Viral V. & Berger, Allen N. & Roman, Raluca A., 2018. "Lending implications of U.S. bank stress tests: Costs or benefits?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 58-90.
    12. Filippo Curti & W. Scott Frame & Atanas Mihov, 2022. "Are the Largest Banking Organizations Operationally More Risky?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1223-1259, August.
    13. Toshiaki Ogawa, 2020. "Welfare Implications of Bank Capital Requirements under Dynamic Default Decisions," IMES Discussion Paper Series 20-E-03, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    14. Favara, Giovanni & Ivanov, Ivan & Rezende, Marcelo, 2021. "GSIB surcharges and bank lending: Evidence from US corporate loan data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1426-1443.
    15. Emilio Bisetti & Stephen A. Karolyi, 2024. "Meeting Targets in Competitive Product Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(4), pages 2845-2884, August.
    16. Kenji Suganuma & Yoichi Ueno, 2018. "The Effects of the Bank of Japan's Corporate and Government Bond Purchases on Credit Spreads," IMES Discussion Paper Series 18-E-04, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    17. Axel Per Hedström & Gazi Salah Uddin & Md Lutfur Rahman & Bo Sjö, 2024. "Systemic risk in the Scandinavian banking sector," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 581-608, January.
    18. Anani, Makafui & Owusu, Felix, 2023. "Regulatory capital and bank risk-resilience amid the Covid-19 pandemic: How are the Basel reforms faring?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    19. Anna Kovner & Peter Van Tassel, 2022. "Evaluating Regulatory Reform: Banks' Cost of Capital and Lending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1313-1367, August.
    20. Mark Mink & Sebastiaan Pool, 2018. "Bank Recapitalizations, Credit Supply, and the Transmission of Monetary Policy," DNB Working Papers 616, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:ysm:ypfsfc:v:7:y:2025:i:3:p:20-49. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/smyalus.html .

    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.