IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/26887.html

Bank Stress Testing: Public Interest or Regulatory Capture?

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Ian Schneider
  • Philip E. Strahan
  • Jun Yang

Abstract

We test whether measures of potential influence on regulators affect stress test outcomes. The large trading banks – those most plausibly ‘Too big to Fail’ – face the toughest tests. In contrast, we find no evidence that either political or regulatory connections affect the tests. Stress tests have a greater effect on the value of large trading banks’ portfolios; the large trading banks respond by making more conservative capital plans; and, despite their more conservative capital plans, the large trading banks still fail their tests more frequently than other banks. These results are consistent with a public-interest view of regulation, not regulatory capture.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Ian Schneider & Philip E. Strahan & Jun Yang, 2020. "Bank Stress Testing: Public Interest or Regulatory Capture?," NBER Working Papers 26887, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26887
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w26887.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kalt, Joseph P & Zupan, Mark A, 1984. "Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 279-300, June.
    2. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Kermani, Amir & Kwak, James & Mitton, Todd, 2016. "The value of connections in turbulent times: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 368-391.
    3. Duchin, Ran & Sosyura, Denis, 2014. "Safer ratios, riskier portfolios: Banks׳ response to government aid," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 1-28.
    4. repec:oup:rfinst:v:21:y:2017:i:4:p:1445-1484. is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Fernandes, Marcelo & Igan, Deniz & Pinheiro, Marcelo, 2020. "March madness in Wall Street: (What) does the market learn from stress tests?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    6. Goldstein, Itay & Leitner, Yaron, 2018. "Stress tests and information disclosure," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 34-69.
    7. Vitaly M. Bord & Victoria Ivashina & Ryan D. Taliaferro, 2018. "Large Banks and Small Firm Lending," NBER Working Papers 25184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Brian S. Chen & Samuel G. Hanson & Jeremy C. Stein, 2017. "The Decline of Big-Bank Lending to Small Business: Dynamic Impacts on Local Credit and Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 23843, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig, 2013. "The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9929, December.
    10. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    11. W. Scott Frame & Kristopher Gerardi & Paul S. Willen, 2015. "The failure of supervisory stress testing: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and OFHEO," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2015-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    12. Flannery, Mark & Hirtle, Beverly & Kovner, Anna, 2017. "Evaluating the information in the federal reserve stress tests," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-18.
    13. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    14. Fernandes, Marcelo & Igan, Deniz & Pinheiro, Marcelo, 2020. "March madness in Wall Street: (What) does the market learn from stress tests?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    15. Lim, Ivan & Hagendorff, Jens & Armitage, Seth, 2019. "Is the fox guarding the henhouse? Bankers in the Federal Reserve, bank leverage and risk-shifting," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 478-504.
    16. Duchin, Ran & Sosyura, Denis, 2012. "The politics of government investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 24-48.
    17. Sophie A. Shive & Margaret M. Forster, 2017. "The Revolving Door for Financial Regulators," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(4), pages 1445-1484.
    18. 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.
    19. Schuermann, Til, 2016. "Stress Testing in Wartime and in Peacetime," Working Papers 16-01, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    20. Philip E. Strahan, 2013. "Too Big to Fail: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 43-61, November.
    21. Sumit Agarwal & David Lucca & Amit Seru & Francesco Trebbi, 2014. "Inconsistent Regulators: Evidence from Banking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 889-938.
    22. Bertrand Candelon & Mr. Amadou N Sy, 2015. "How Did Markets React to Stress Tests?," IMF Working Papers 2015/075, International Monetary Fund.
    23. Li, Lei, 2013. "TARP funds distribution and bank loan supply," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 4777-4792.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Lei Li & Philip E. Strahan & Song Zhang, 2020. "Banks as Lenders of First Resort: Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis," NBER Working Papers 27256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Sumit Agarwal & Xudong An & Lawrence R. Cordell & Raluca Roman, 2020. "Bank Stress Test Results and Their Impact on Consumer Credit Markets," Working Papers 20-30, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    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. Thomas Schneider & Philip E Strahan & Jun Yang, 2023. "Bank Stress Testing: Public Interest or Regulatory Capture?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(2), pages 423-467.
    2. Cortés, Kristle R. & Demyanyk, Yuliya & Li, Lei & Loutskina, Elena & Strahan, Philip E., 2020. "Stress tests and small business lending," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 260-279.
    3. Lim, Ivan & Hagendorff, Jens & Armitage, Seth, 2019. "Is the fox guarding the henhouse? Bankers in the Federal Reserve, bank leverage and risk-shifting," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 478-504.
    4. Thomas Lambert, 2019. "Lobbying on Regulatory Enforcement Actions: Evidence from U.S. Commercial and Savings Banks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2545-2572, June.
    5. Beverly Hirtle & Anna Kovner, 2022. "Bank Supervision," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 39-56, November.
    6. Bank for International Settlements, 2025. "Lessons on supervisory effectiveness - a literature review," BCBS Working Papers 45, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Lambert, Thomas, 2015. "Lobbying on Regulatory Enforcement Actions: Evidence from Banking," HIT-REFINED Working Paper Series 28, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Ms. Deniz O Igan & Thomas Lambert, 2019. "Bank Lobbying: Regulatory Capture and Beyond," IMF Working Papers 2019/171, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Thomas Philippon & Pierre Pessarossi & Boubacar Camara, 2017. "Backtesting European Stress Tests," NBER Working Papers 23083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lukas Ahnert & Pascal Vogt & Volker Vonhoff & Florian Weigert, 2020. "Regulatory stress testing and bank performance," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1449-1488, November.
    11. Cecilia Parlatore & Thomas Philippon, 2025. "Designing Stress Scenarios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 80(2), pages 833-873, April.
    12. Lazzari, Valter & Vena, Luigi & Venegoni, Andrea, 2017. "Stress tests and asset quality reviews of banks: A policy announcement tool," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 86-98.
    13. Berger, Allen N. & Molyneux, Phil & Wilson, John O.S., 2020. "Banks and the real economy: An assessment of the research," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Kasim Ahmed & Giovanni Calice, 2023. "The effects of supervisory stress testing on bank lending: examining large UK banks," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(2), pages 228-247, June.
    15. Wagner, Wolf & Lambert, Thomas & Zhang, Eden Quxian, 2020. "Banks, Political Capital, and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 15612, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Berger, Allen N. & Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli, 2021. "Banking research in the time of COVID-19," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    17. Schneider, Thomas & Strahan, Philip E. & Yang, Jun, 2025. "Bank stress testing, human capital investment and risk management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    18. Sahin, Cenkhan & de Haan, Jakob & Neretina, Ekaterina, 2020. "Banking stress test effects on returns and risks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    19. Gopalan, Yadav, 2022. "The effects of ratings disclosure by bank regulators," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1).
    20. Ahnert, Lukas & Vogt, Pascal & Vonhoff, Volker & Weigert, Florian, 2020. "Regulatory stress testing and bank performance," CFR Working Papers 20-03, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:26887. 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/nberrus.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.