The role of bank regulation and supervision (RS) on financial stability and welfare has been subject to ongoing research, especially since the Great Recession. RS is expected to help eliminate the adverse selection and moral hazard problems that are abundant in financial transactions. In this paper, we present a general equilibrium model that is augmented by either a bank regulatory and supervisory agent who chooses the level of RS by maximizing bank profits, or by a macroprudential agent who minimizes non-performing loans (NPL). We compare the long-term outcomes of these scenarios and show that minimizing NPL is feasible for a larger and economically more viable range of parameter values than the alternatives. Moreover, for a comparable set of parameter combinations, the optimal choice of RS that minimizes NPL leads to both higher levels of steady state income and lower interest spreads as compared to RS that maximizes bank profits.

We address whether politics played important roles in allocating Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) bailout funds, and whether PPP allocations effectively bailed out small businesses vs. banks. Our econometric evidence suggests that politicians/other government agents at national and local levels effectively steered PPP funds toward small businesses and banks based on their locations to try to influence election outcomes. We also uncover evidence that some PPP funds were effectively allocated by lobbying efforts of certain banks. Findings are confirmed by a novel mediation analysis and numerous robustness checks. We also find banks profited from PPP through multiple channels, adding to extant findings, and suggesting that PPP may have effectively bailed out banks as well as small businesses, but through different political influences.