Asset Reclassifications and Bank Recapitalization During the Financial Crisis
研究了2008年金融危机期间银行利用资产重分类会计选择增加监管资本的行为，发现这种基于应计的资本增加是暂时的，投资者视其为负面信号，且若银行不配合实质性纠正措施，后续仍将面临资本不足和财务困境。
Regulators frequently relax accounting rules during a financial crisis as a means of regulatory forbearance. The new accounting options provide banks with an opportunity for an accrual-based increase in their regulatory capital. The use of such an accounting option helps reduce the costs of government interventions such as bailouts and avoid the dilution of existing shareholders’ ownership rights. We examine the introduction of the reclassification option for financial assets during the 2008 financial crisis and study the position of accrual-based options in the pecking order of banks’ recapitalization measures. The findings suggest that the accrual-based increase in regulatory capital is temporary and does not provide permanent relief. Consistent with the long-term costs of accrual-based measures, investors perceive the accounting choice as a negative signal. If banks do not complement their use of the accounting option by other corrective actions that result in a real capital increase and a liquidity injection, they continue to suffer from low capitalization and financial difficulties in the following years. Ultimately, government interventions in accounting regulation are unlikely to offer a sustainable solution to capital shortfalls in the banking sector if they are not supported by the concurrent enforcement of real corrective actions. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting. Funding: The authors acknowledge financial support from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Project-ID 403041268-TRR 266) as well as from IAAER and KPMG under the “Research Informing the IASB Standard Setting” grant. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4364 .