We present a screening model of the risk sensitivity of bank capital regulation. A banker funds a project with uninsured deposits and costly capital. Capital resolves a moral hazard problem in the choice of the probability of default (PD). The project’s loss given default (LGD) is the banker’s private information. The regulator receives a noisy signal about the LGD and imposes a minimum capital requirement. We show that the optimal sensitivity of capital regulation is non-monotonic in the accuracy of risk assessment. If the signal is inaccurate, the regulator should use risk-insensitive capital requirements. Given sufficient accuracy, the regulator should separate types via risk-sensitive capital requirements, reducing the risk-sensitivity of bank capital as accuracy improves.

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.