This study examines a commercial bank manager's incentives to reduce regulatory costs imposed when the bank's capital adequacy ratio falls below its regulatory minimum. It also tests the general political sensitivity hypothesis that a manager seeks to reduce political costs incurred when revenue is unusually large. Tests of adjustments to the loan loss provision, loan charge-offs, and securities gains and losses attempt to control for exogenous economic conditions and previous investing decisions. Results are consistent with hypotheses associating accounting adjustments with capital adequacy ratio guidelines, but fail to support the political sensitivity hypothesis

A fixed-rate deposit insurance system provides a moral hazard for excessive risk taking and is not viable absent regulation. Although the deposit insurance system appears to have worked remarkably well over most of its 50-year history, major problems began to appear in the early 1980's. This paper tests the hypothesis that increases in competition caused bank charter values to decline, which in turn caused banks to increase default risk through increases in asset risk and reductions in capital