Tag: Countercyclical Capital Buffer

With a little help from my friends: counter-cyclical capital buffers during the Covid-19 crisis

Dennis Reinhardt and Carlos van Hombeeck

Have post-crisis reforms of banking regulation made banks and lending more resilient to the shock from Covid-19 and if so by how much? This blog takes one specific example – countercyclical capital buffers (CCyBs) – and shows that policy makers in a range of countries were able to quickly release these capital requirements, enabling banks to use the cumulated buffers. This released capital may in turn potentially help banks to support lending. And it will likely benefit lending in the country releasing requirements on buffers as well as banks’ lending to other countries, leading to potential positive international spillovers (see e.g. discussion of spillovers due to macroprudential policies by the ECB and others).

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Making Macroprudential Hay When the Sun Shines

Saleem Bahaj, Jonathan Bridges, Cian O’Neill & Frederic Malherbe.

It’s not just what you do; it’s when you do it – many decisions in life have “state contingent” costs and benefits. The payoffs from haymaking depend crucially upon the weather. Putting fodder away for a rainy day can be quick, cheap and prudent when skies are blue. But results may take a soggy and unproductive turn, if poorly timed. The financial climate is similarly important when assessing the costs and benefits of macroprudential policy changes. We argue that it is best to build the countercyclical capital buffer when the macroeconomic sun is shining. We find strong empirical evidence to support our claim.

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