The Effect of Risk and Organizational Structures on Bank Capital Ratios
研究了银行持有资本的动机如何受风险和组织结构影响，发现风险较高的银行需持有更多资本，而独立银行比银行控股公司旗下的银行持有更多资本。
Banks finance their loans and other assets with a mix of deposits, debt, and equity capital. Maintaining adequate capital is impor-tant for banks because it absorbs losses and protects them from failure. Capital also protects the financial system and overall economy from the costs that can arise from bank failures. For example, one of the reasons policymakers were concerned about financial stability dur-ing the financial crisis was low capital ratios—the ratio of equity capital to total assets—at some of the largest banks, which led to government programs to provide capital to these banks. While capital helps ensure the safety of banks and the economy, bank owners and managers have mixed incentives to hold capital. On one hand, banks have an incentive to hold low levels of capital because it costs more to fund assets with capital than with debt or deposits. On the other hand, banks that are relatively risky might have to hold higher levels of capital to satisfy uninsured creditors or address their regulators’ safety and soundness concerns. Banks ’ incentives to hold capital also might differ depending on their organizational structure. For example, banks that are not owned by a bank holding company (BHC) might hold more capital than banks owned by a BHC because they have less access to sources of capi-tal should they need to raise more. In addition, S-corp banks, which Rajdeep Sengupta is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Eric W. Hogue is an analyst at the bank. This article is on the bank’s website at www. KansasCityFed.org. 5 Page numbering will change upon this article’s inclusion in the coming issue of the Economic Review.