A New Look at the Benefits and Costs of Bank Capital
By Jihad Dagher, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, Luc Laeven, Lev Ratnovski, and Hui Tong
The appropriate level of bank capital and, more generally, a bank’s capacity to absorb losses, has been a contentious subject of discussion since the financial crisis. Larger buffers give bankers “skin in the game” helping to prevent excessive risk taking and absorb losses during crises. But, some argue, they might increase the cost of financial intermediation and slow economic growth.