IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/bisbcw/42.html

Banks' window-dressing of the G-SIB framework: causal evidence from a quantitative impact study

Author

Listed:
  • Bank for International Settlements

Abstract

Banks' market activity is commonly observed to contract around period-end dates. This behaviour by banks, known as "window-dressing", has micro- and macro-prudential implications, as well as potential repercussions for financial stability and the operationalisation of monetary policy. However, data limitations have constrained the capability of studies to attribute incentives for this behaviour to specific policies, restricting policymakers' scope to impose on banks costly mitigating reporting reforms. Exploiting a novel and uniquely extensive bank-level dataset, this study employs a difference-in-differences empirical strategy to test whether the response of banks to the G-SIB framework – a key component of the Basel III macroprudential reforms – directly contributes to window-dressing behaviour. It finds causal evidence that it does. These results suggest that banks' attempts to lower their G-SIB scores may be a significant driver of year-end window-dressing behaviour and highlight the potential broader implications of this behaviour on market volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Bank for International Settlements, 2024. "Banks' window-dressing of the G-SIB framework: causal evidence from a quantitative impact study," BCBS Working Papers 42, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:bisbcw:42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/bcbs/publ/wp42.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bis.org/bcbs/publ/wp42.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vladimir Kotomin & Drew Winters, 2006. "Quarter-End Effects in Banks: Preferred Habitat or Window Dressing?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 29(1), pages 61-82, February.
    2. Banegas, Ayelen & Tase, Manjola, 2020. "Reserve balances, the federal funds market and arbitrage in the new regulatory framework," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    3. Allen, Linda & Saunders, Anthony, 1992. "Bank window dressing: Theory and evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 585-623, June.
    4. Luis Garcia & Ulf Lewrick & Taja Sečnik, 2023. "Window Dressing and the Designation of Global Systemically Important Banks," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 231-264, October.
    5. Torstensson, Pär & Welz, Peter, 2023. "Policy options to address window dressing in the G-SIB framework," Macroprudential Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 23.
    6. Markus Behn & Giacomo Mangiante & Laura Parisi & Michael Wedow, 2022. "Behind the Scenes of the Beauty Contest—Window Dressing and the G-SIB Framework," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 18(5), pages 1-42, December.
    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. Bassi, Claudio & Behn, Markus & Grill, Michael & Waibel, Martin, 2024. "Window dressing of regulatory metrics: Evidence from repo markets," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    2. Luis Garcia & Ulf Lewrick & Taja Sečnik, 2023. "Window Dressing and the Designation of Global Systemically Important Banks," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 231-264, October.
    3. Bassi, Claudio & Behn, Markus & Grill, Michael & Waibel, Martin, 2023. "Window dressing of regulatory metrics: evidence from repo markets," Working Paper Series 2771, European Central Bank.
    4. Luis Garcia & Ulf Lewrick & Taja Sečnik, 2021. "Is window dressing by banks systemically important?," BIS Working Papers 960, Bank for International Settlements.
    5. J. Z. Zhang, 2026. "Liquidity Constraints and Auditor Responses to Repo Transactions," Post-Print hal-05578404, HAL.
    6. Kotomin, Vladimir & Smith, Stanley D. & Winters, Drew B., 2008. "Preferred habitat for liquidity in international short-term interest rates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 240-250, February.
    7. Puriya Abbassi & Rajkamal Iyer & José-Luis Peydró & Paul E. Soto, 2025. "Stressed Banks? Evidence from the Largest-Ever Supervisory Review," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(10), pages 8390-8412, October.
    8. Gorton, Gary & Metrick, Andrew & Xie, Lei, 2021. "The flight from maturity," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    9. Edward L. Owens & Joanna Shuang Wu, 2015. "Quarter-end repo borrowing dynamics and bank risk opacity," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 1164-1209, September.
    10. Christopher S. Sutherland, 2017. "What Explains Month-End Funding Pressure in Canada?," Discussion Papers 17-9, Bank of Canada.
    11. Ahmed S. Baig & Drew B. Winters, 2021. "Month-End Regularities in the Overnight Bank Funding Markets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-16, May.
    12. Shanshan Yang & Sherrill Shaffer, 2010. "Bank Window Dressing: A Re-Assessment and a Puzzle," CAMA Working Papers 2010-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    13. Jérémie Bertrand & Laurent Weill, 2022. "In December days are shorter but loans are cheaper," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1335-1356, July.
    14. Benjamin Munyan, 2015. "Regulatory Arbitrage in Repo Markets," Working Papers 15-22, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    15. Miller, Steve M. & Moussawi, Rabih & Wang, Bin & Yang, Tina, 2021. "Institutional investors and bank governance: An international analysis of bank earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. Raddatz K., Claudio E., 2025. "Authorized participants’ regulatory constraints and limits to ETF arbitrage during market turmoil Evidence from the dash-for-cash episode," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    17. Sven Klingler & Olav Syrstad, 2021. "Disclosing the Undisclosed: Commercial Paper As Hidden Liquidity Suffers," Working Paper 2021/16, Norges Bank.
    18. Gong, Di & Huizinga, Harry & Li, Tianshi & Zhu, Jigao, 2023. "Goodhart’s law in China: Bank branching regulation and window dressing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    19. Bertrand, Jérémie & Burietz, Aurore & Weill, Laurent, 2021. "The month-of-the-year effect in corporate lending," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    20. Baig, Ahmed & Winters, Drew B., 2018. "A preferred habitat for liquidity in term repos: Before, during and after the financial crisis," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-14.

    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:bis:bisbcw:42. 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: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.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.