The Cyclical Behaviour of European Bank Capital Buffers

Using an unbalanced panel of accounting data from 1997 to 2004 and controlling for individual bank costs and risk, we find capital buffers of the banks in the EU15 have a significant negative co-movement with the cycle. For banks in the accession countries there is significant positive co-movement. Capital buffers of commercial and savings banks, and of large banks, exhibit negative co-movement. Those of co-operative and smaller banks exhibit positive co-movement. Speeds of adjustment are fairly slow. We interpret these results and discuss policy implications, noting that negative co-movement of capital buffers will exacerbate the procyclical impact of Basel II.Bank capital; bank regulation; business cycle fluctuations

CEE Banking Sector Co-Movement: Contagion or Interdependence?

This paper examines banking and financial sector return co-movements between the three largest Central and Eastern European countries to have recently joined the European Union, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In order to build up an understanding of the soundness and stability of the banking systems of these new member states, we try to determine whether it is contagion, or interdependence that is driving the co-movements between these markets. Employing various different tests of propagation and controlling for own-country news and other fundamentals, we find evidence of cross-border banking sector contagion and determine that it is regional rather than international shocks that are driving the market movements.Contagion, Macroeconomic news, Banking sector, Stock returns

Bank Capital Buffer and Risk Adjustment Decisions

Building an unbalanced panel of United States (US) bank holding company (BHC) and commercial bank balance sheet data from 1986 to 2006, we examine the relationship between short-term capital buffer and portfolio risk adjustments. Our estimations indicate that the relationship over the sample period is a positive two-way relationship. Moreover, we show that the management of such adjustments is dependent on the degree of bank capitalization. Further investigation through time-varying analysis reveals a cyclical pattern in the uncovered relationship: negative after the 1991/1992 crisis, and positive before 1991 and after 1997.Bank capital, Portfolio Risk, Regulation

The Impact of Banking Sector Stability on the Real Economy

This article studies the relationship between the degree of banking sector stability and the subsequent evolution of real output growth and inflation. Adopting a panel VAR methodology for a sample of 18 OECD countries, we find a positive link between banking sector stability and real output growth. This finding is predominantly driven by periods of instability rather than by very stable periods. In addition, we show that an unstable banking sector increases uncertainty about future output growth. No clear link between banking sector stability and inflation seems to exist. We then argue that the link between banking stability and real output growth can be used to improve output growth forecasts. Using Fed forecast errors, we show that banking sector stability (instability) results in a significant underestimation (overestimation) of GDP growth in the subsequent quarters.Banking sector stability, real output growth, output growth forecasts

The cyclical behaviour of European bank capital buffers

Using an unbalanced panel of commercial, savings and co-operative banks for the years 1997 to 2004 we examine the cyclical behaviour of European bank capital buffers. After controlling for other potential de-terminants of bank capital, we find that capital buffers of the banks in the accession countries (RAM) have a significant positive relationship with the cycle, while for those in the EU15 and the EA and the combined EU25 the relationship is significantly negative. We additionally find fairly slow speeds of ad-justment, with around two-thirds of the correction towards desired capital buffers taking place each year. We further distinguish by type and size of bank, and find that capital buffers of commercial and savings banks, and also of a sub-sample of large banks, exhibit negative co-movement. Co-operative banks and smaller banks on the other hand, tend to exhibit positive cyclical co-movement.bank capital; bank regulation; business cycle fluctuations

Contagion and interdependence: measuring CEE banking sector co-movements

Making use of ten years of daily data, this paper examines whether banking sector co-movements be-tween the three largest Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) can be attributed to contagion or to interdependence. Our tests based on simple unadjusted correlation analysis uncover evidence of conta-gion between all pairs of countries. Adjusting for market volatility during turmoil, however, produces dif-ferent results. We then find contagion from the Czech Republic to Hungary during this time, but all other cross-market co-movements are rather attributable rather to strong cross-market linkages. In addition, we construct a set of dummy variables to try to capture the impact of macroeconomic news on these markets. Controlling for own-country fundamentals, we discover that the correlations diminish between the Czech Republic and Poland, but that coefficients for all pairs remain substantial and significant. Finally, we ad-dress the problem of simultaneous equations, omitted variables and heteroskedasticity, and adjust our data accordingly. We confirm our previous findings. Our tests provide evidence in favour of parameter insta-bility, again signifying the existence of contagion arising from problems in the Czech Republic affecting Hungary during much of 1996.contagion; interdependence; macroeconomic news; banking sector; stock returns

Forecasting market crashes: further international evidence

This paper studies the extent to which market crashes are predictable for a set of six countries, focusing in particular on possible differences between transition economies (The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) and mature markets (UK, US and EU). We estimate a set of individual country and pooled specifications to find that market crashes, in the broader sense, are predictable for all countries analysed. We additionally investigate the role that investor heterogeneity, proxied by trading volume, plays in this predictability and find some varying results between countries. For the Central and Eastern European Countries (CE3), an increase in trading volume relative to trend appears to have great predictive power, a result that is supportive of the theory of investor heterogeneity outlined in the relevant background studies. For the more mature markets (G5), on the other hand, market crashes appear more likely to follow a period of increased stock prices and returns, a result fitting a number of traditional theories, in particular the stochastic bubble model. Further analysis, allowing for time-varying coefficients, confirms the volume-crash relationship for the CE3 and provides preliminary evidence that macro news releases may additionally contribute to the predictability of market crashes.aggregate market returns; skewness; trading volume; market crash

The cyclical behaviour of European bank capital buffers

Using an unbalanced panel of accounting data from 1997 to 2004 and controlling for individual bank costs and risk, we find capital buffers of the banks in the EU15 have a significant negative co-movement with the cycle. For banks in the accession countries there is significant positive co-movement. Capital buffers of commercial and savings banks, and of large banks, exhibit negative co-movement. Those of co-operative and smaller banks exhibit positive co-movement. Speeds of adjustment are fairly slow. We interpret these results and discuss policy implications, noting that negative co-movement of capital buffers will exacerbate the pro-cyclical impact of Basel II

The Effect of Capital Requirement Regulation on the Transmission of Monetary Policy: Evidence from Austria.

This paper investigates the existence of a bank lending and a bank capital channel in Austria by applying the dynamic Arellano-Bond GMM-estimator to a quarterly bank level dataset spanning from 1997 to 2003. While we do find evidence that the bank lending channel is in existence, with an important role active for capitalization, we are unable to confirm that the bank capital channel is in force in Austria. Our results indicate some counter-cyclicality in lending activity, a finding that is in line with the existing Austrian literature. Classification-

SESSION B "The design of financial systems" Nonlinearity of bank capital and charter values Nonlinearity of Bank Capital and Charter Values *

Abstract In this paper, we contribute to the literature by exploring nonlinearity between capital buffers and charter values. Adopting linear, quadratic, and semi-parametric spline estimation techniques, we wish to determine the functional form of these relationships. Our findings indicate that between 1986 and 2008 the relationship between bank capital and charter values is non-linear and concave. In particular, we show that charter values do encourage prudent capital management policies. However, once charter values rise above a certain threshold, banks maintain a constant capital buffer. This is in line with the too-big-to-fail paradigm but contrasts theoretical predictions that larger charter values necessarily induce banks to hold larger capital buffers. JEL Codes: G21, G28, G3