Does Stringent Capital Regulation with Voluntary Adoption Incentivize Risk-Taking?

Jahir Palas*, Fernando F Moreira

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Working paper

Abstract

This study investigates whether tougher capital requirements with voluntary adoption encourage aggressive small banks’ risk-taking behavior. The community bank leverage ratio framework in the US (effective from the first quarter of 2020) is utilized as a case study of stringent but voluntary capital regulation. After analyzing quarterly data on 3260 community banks, we find that stringent capital has a significant causal relationship with aggressive banks’ increased risk-taking. Voluntary stringent capital regulation offers risk-taking incentives that motivate aggressive banks’ adoption and result in more risk-taking. The findings are robust to alternative samples, risk definitions, estimation methods, and model specifications.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • capital regulation
  • community banks
  • risk-taking

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Does Stringent Capital Regulation with Voluntary Adoption Incentivize Risk-Taking?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this