We examine the role of bank capital in moderating the relationship between bank liquidity creation and the failure risk in U.S. banks over the period of 2003–2014. We find that, conditional on bank capital, bank liquidity creation is related to bank failure risk negatively. The negative relationship is moderated positively (i.e., strengthened) by (changes in) bank capital. This finding is consistent with the view that banks may strengthen their solvency through increased capital in response to the illiquidity risk associated with liquidity creation; and higher capital enhances the ability of banks to create liquidity. The result is robust to different estimation methods, and alternative measures of liquidity creation, bank failure risk, and bank capital. Further analysis shows that the significant and negative effect is more prominent for small banks, and the impact of bank capital was more pronounced during the recent financial crisis of 2007–2009

This article uses the 2007–09 financial crisis as a negative liquidity shock on banks in the USA and analyzes its transmission to the real economy. The ex ante heterogeneity in the amount of long-term debt that matured during the crisis is used to measure the variation in banks’ exposure to the liquidity shock. I find that banks transmitted the liquidity shock to the real economy by reducing their loan supply. The reduction was particularly strong for real estate loans. As a result, house prices declined in the MSAs where these banks have branches. Bank capital plays a significant role in the transmission: under-capitalized banks transmitted the liquidity shock, whereas well-capitalized banks’ lending did not show any decline

I use a unique institutional feature of money market funds to identify whether funds hold additional liquidity to guard against and prevent potential investor runs. Specifically, some funds are used as a cash management vehicle for related entities, such as other funds in the fund family. These “internal” funds should experience less outflows during market stress, and should thus have less need to hold this additional liquidity. Indeed, these “internal” prime money market funds do hold lower liquidity than other prime funds. This effect is most pronounced at quarter ends, when there is an exogenous reduction in cash demand from non-US bank dealers

We empirically investigate the effect of the Capital Purchase Program under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on the transparency of participating banks by examining changes in their loan loss provisions. We demonstrate that TARP banks reduced transparency to a greater extent than non-TARP banks did by recognizing smaller and less timely loan loss provisions for changes in nonperforming loans and increasing discretionary loan loss provisions more after receiving TARP funds. While the reduced timeliness was mainly observed in large TARP banks and banks with low tier 1 capital or high earnings, small TARP banks and banks with low earnings significantly increased their discretionary provisions. In addition, the decreased timeliness and increased discretionary provisions were mainly driven by TARP banks that did not repay their funds. TARP banks’ reduced transparency, which inhibits the accurate assessment of bank risk by outsiders, is consistent with moral hazard in disclosing their financial reporting information

This paper studies depositor behavior in a bank run experiment with partial deposit insurance. In the experiment, depositors face two forms of uncertainty regarding their deposit coverage in the event of a bank run: (i) “intrinsic” uncertainty related to the size of the deposit insurance fund, and (ii) “strategic” uncertainty, as the actual coverage depends on the number of depositors who run on the bank. We consider three scenarios that differ in the way the deposit insurance scheme reimburses depositors. The results show that intrinsic uncertainty on its own has a negligible effect on the number of bank runs. However, when combined, the two forms of uncertainty exert a significant impact on the propensity to withdraw and result in a large number of bank runs. Moreover, runs are more frequent when leaving funds in the bank is an increasingly costly strategy

In 2011, Colombia instituted a tax on repayment of bank loans, which increased the cost of short‐term bank credit more than long‐term credit. Firms responded by cutting short‐term loans for liquidity management purposes and increasing the use of cash and trade credit. In industries in which trade credit is more accessible (based on U.S. Compustat firms), we find substitution into accounts payable and little effect on cash and investment. Where trade credit is less available, firms increase cash and cut investment. Thus, trade credit provides an alternative source of liquidity that can insulate some firms from bank liquidity shocks

We model asset encumbrance by banks subject to rollover risk and study the consequences for fragility, funding costs, and prudential regulation. A bank’s privately optimal encumbrance choice balances the benefit of expanding profitable, yet illiquid, investment funded by cheap long-term senior secured debt, against the cost of greater fragility from runs on unsecured debt. We derive testable implications about encumbrance ratios. The introduction of deposit insurance or wholesale funding guarantees induces excessive encumbrance and fragility. Limits on asset encumbrance or Pigovian taxes eliminate such risk-shifting incentives. Our results shed light on prudential policies currently being pursued in several jurisdictions. Received September 9, 2017; editorial decision July 28, 2018 by Editor Philip Strahan

Recent literature suggests that higher capital requirements for banks might lead to a socially costly crowding out of deposits by equity. This paper shows that additional equity in banks can help to crowd in deposits. Intuitively, as banks have more equity and become safer, the cost of deposit funding may decline; this, in turn, can encourage banks to expand their deposits. However, I also find that, for this effect to occur, capital requirements may have to be stringent enough: When bank capital is low, a small rise in capital requirements can cause banks to substitute equity for deposits. Overall, a non-monotonic relationship between the required amount of equity in banks and their level of deposit funding obtains

Despite the growth of Islamic banks (IBs), little is known about their liquidity creation performance and financial stability consequences relative to conventional banks (CBs). We address these issues using data from 24 countries over 2000–2014. We find IBs create more liquidity per unit of assets than CBs, primarily on the asset side of the balance sheet. Results are economically significant, econometrically robust, hold in high- and low-income countries, and during the Global Financial Crisis and other times. In addition, CB liquidity creation results in reduced national financial stability, particularly in high-income countries, whereas IB liquidity creation does not

We investigate the effectiveness of bail-in mechanisms in mitigating systemic risk and welfare costs to society during resolution processes. To perform this study, we define a network model of mutually exposed banks and use it to simulate the effects of shocks to these banks using granular data of the Brazilian banking system, its interbank exposures and credit register operations. In the simulations, we compare the outcomes of these initial shocks after resolution processes with and without bail-ins. The simulations show that by avoiding the liquidation of banks and the resulting interruption in their credit provision, bail-ins would be effective in preventing the amplification of losses imposed on the real sector. Analyzing the effects that the liquidation of Brazilian Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) would cause to credit provision to economic sectors, we find bailing in these banks would produce a relevant decrease in credit crunches. However, in our sample, only a few banks could benefit from bail-ins due to insufficiency of bail-inable instruments