Procyclicality
Accord preparations: the rest is yet to come
While the debates have raged for months about many aspects of the proposed Basel II Accord, on some points there has been relative silence, in particular with regard to the seeming overreliance on statistical techniques.
Sponsor's article > Is 8% for all seasons?
Considering the potential pro-cyclical impact of Basel II and the limited effectiveness of countervailing influences, David Rowe concludes that making the 8% ratio of capital-to-risk-adjusted-assets a discretionary policy variable should be part of the…
BIS publishes raft of papers
The Bank for International Settlements published online a number of papers that cover a variety of aspects of the Basel II proposals. The papers were presented at a workshop organized by the Basel Committee and the Banca D'Italia in late March.
Trichet calls for more transparency, especially for credit derivatives
Jean-Claude Trichet, governor of the Bank of France, said transparency is essential to prevent a "herd mentality" in the financial market that can create artificial swings in market prices.
Sponsor's article > No cure through the cycle
Some have argued that the antidote for pro-cyclicality in the Basel II capital requirements is the use of 'through-the-cycle' estimates of default and recovery rates. David Rowe argues that, whilethis might mitigate the pro-cyclical impact of the Accord,…
Rating agencies open can of worms
NEW YORK — Rating agencies are coming under much closer scrutiny as providers of operational risk analysis, as a result of the Basel Accord revisions and recent US corporate scandals.
"Substantial flaws still remain" in Basel II, says CSFB's Ervin
"While there is much to admire in the new [Basel II] rules, there are also many elements that raise serious concern," said Wilson Ervin, a managing director and head of the firm's strategic risk management department of Credit Suisse First Boston, who…
BIS paper slams rating agencies
A new paper just published by the Bank for International Settlements' Monetary and Economic Department, titled 'Are credit ratings procyclical?' takes a critical view of rating agencies' activities.
Sponsor's article > Don't count on buffers
One possible mitigator of the pro-cyclical impact of risk-sensitive capital requirements would be counter-cyclical changes in capital buffers. Empirical evidence on this issue is scarce and a new regulatory capital regime could well induce a behavioural…
Sponsor's article > The role of correlation
David Rowe surveys recent research on the role of correlation between probability of default and recovery rates, as well as among default probabilities.
Basel II will lead to more instability, critic argues
LONDON - The Basel II bank capital accord will result in more banking instability and more pro-cyclicality, where bank actions taken in response to solvency rules reinforce economic and market cycles, a leading critic of the accord said in October.
Letter to the editor of Risk : a response to Cosandey and Wolf’s Avoiding pro-cyclicality
Much has been written on the proposed changes to the Basel Accord (Basel II), and we have been surprised that the vast majority of both academic and practitioner literature focuses on the prescriptive regulatory approaches and formulas to calculate…
Sponsor's article > Basel II and pro-cyclicality
The main argument for making regulatory capital requirements more risk-sensitive is to improve allocational efficiency. But this may lead to intensified business cycles if regulators fail to take measures to prevent such an impact.
Avoiding pro-cyclicality
David Cosandey and Urs Wolf argue that, for small to medium-sized enterprises, Basel II is pro-cyclical because of a double-counting of the risks. They present two main directions for possible capital rules that would circumvent the pro-cyclicality…
Fed's Gordy criticises Basel II procyclicality adjustment
NEW YORK - The procyclicality ‘smoothing’ adjustment technique likely to form part of the Basel II capital Accord is sub-optimal, according to Michael Gordy, a senior economist in the research and statistics division of the Board of Governors of the…
Stress testing is the best option to counter Basel II cyclicality problem, say regulators
BASEL – Global banking regulators said stress testing of internal ratings based (IRB) methods of measuring bank credit risk is the best option in terms of tackling the possibility that the complex Basel II bank capital accord could reinforce economic…
Key Basel II package expected tomorrow
BASEL – Global banking regulators plan to issue a package of documents on the Basel II bank accord tomorrow, including a key survey seeking information on how the complex, risk-based accord might affect banks around the world.
Basel II could reinforce economic cycles more than expected, says BIS study
BASEL – The Basel II bank capital accord could reinforce economic cycles to a greater extent than expected, according to a working paper issued today by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the so-called central bankers’ central bank.
Letter to the Editor: Forbearance measures needed for Basel II
Wilson Ervin and I published an article in Risk last year on the danger that the Basel II proposed reforms of bank capital will lead to procyclicality, ie, pressure on banks to sell assets or raise capital at inopportune times, due to the risk…
Pro-cyclicality in the new Basel Accord
Could Basel II worsen recessions? By backtesting the proposed capital rules to the last recession, D. Wilson Ervin and Tom Wilde argue that the increased risk sensitivity of loan portfolio regulatory capital in the new Accord could have unwelcome…