Our analysis of how banks’ responses to asset price changes can result in procyclical leverage reveals that, for banks with a binding regulatory leverage constraint, absent differences in regulatory risk weights across assets, procyclical leverage does not occur. For banks without a binding constraint, fair value and bank regulation both can contribute to procyclical leverage. Empirical findings based on a large sample of U.S. commercial banks reveal that bank regulation explains procyclical leverage for banks relatively close to the regulatory leverage constraint and contributes to procyclical leverage for those that are not. We also show that fair value accounting does not contribute to procyclical leverage

The Dodd-Frank Act expands bank managers’ reporting requirements to federal agencies, particularly relating to banks’ financial losses should common market and macroeconomic shocks occur. To comply with this regulation, bank managers have engaged in consulting arrangements (referred to as regulatory consulting). We examine the financial reporting quality implications associated with hiring external auditors for these services. We find banks with auditor-provided regulatory consulting, relative to banks without, have higher financial reporting quality as measured by loan loss provision validity. Consistent with knowledge spillover benefits accruing to financial audit teams, we find more pronounced effects in the fourth versus interim quarters and more frequent income-reducing Y9-C restatements. We also find auditor responsiveness to PCAOB inspections improves the effectiveness of regulatory consulting. Overall, our results suggest regulatory consulting improves the audits of estimates in judgmental financial statement accounts, despite regulatory concerns that these services may impair auditor independence

We examine whether variation in regulatory leniency is associated with the cost of deposits in the banking industry. We predict that lenient regulatory supervision allows for greater bank risk-taking due to delayed intervention, resulting in a higher cost of deposits. Our main finding is a positive association between banks’ cost of uninsured deposits and the leniency of their state regulators, incremental to observable measures of risk and performance. We further show that this result is stronger for riskier banks and when uninsured depositors have a greater ability or incentive to influence deposit rates. These findings suggest that the leniency of bank regulators is priced in uninsured deposit rates and further our understanding of the factors associated with regulatory leniency in the banking industry