IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2025-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regulating Bank Portfolio Choice Under Asymmetric Information

Author

Abstract

Regulating bank risk-taking is challenging since banks know more than regulators about the risks of their portfolios and can make adjustments to game regulations. To address this problem, I build a tractable model that incorporates this information asymmetry. The model is flexible enough to encompass many regulatory tools, although I focus on taxes. These taxes could also be interpreted as reflecting the shadow costs of other regulations, such as capital requirements. I show that linear risk-sensitive taxes should not generally be set more conservatively to address asymmetric information. I further show the efficacy of three regulatory tools: (1) not disclosing taxes to banks until after portfolio selection, (2) nonlinear taxes that respond to information contained in banks' portfolio choice, and (3) taxes on banks' realized pro ts that incentivize banks to reduce risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Anderson, 2025. "Regulating Bank Portfolio Choice Under Asymmetric Information," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2025-009, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-09
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2025.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2025009pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2025.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giammarino, Ronald M & Lewis, Tracy R & Sappington, David E M, 1993. "An Incentive Approach to Banking Regulation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1523-1542, September.
    2. Gordy, Michael B., 2003. "A risk-factor model foundation for ratings-based bank capital rules," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 199-232, July.
    3. J. E. Stiglitz, 1969. "The Effects of Income, Wealth, and Capital Gains Taxation on Risk-Taking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 83(2), pages 263-283.
    4. Yaron Leitner & Basil Williams, 2023. "Model Secrecy and Stress Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 1055-1095, April.
    5. Froot, Kenneth A. & Stein, Jeremy C., 1998. "Risk management, capital budgeting, and capital structure policy for financial institutions: an integrated approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 55-82, January.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:5:p:1219-33 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Chan, Yuk-Shee & Greenbaum, Stuart I & Thakor, Anjan V, 1992. "Is Fairly Priced Deposit Insurance Possible?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(1), pages 227-245, March.
    8. John, Kose & John, Teresa A. & Senbet, Lemma W., 1991. "Risk-shifting incentives of depository institutions: A new perspective on federal deposit insurance reform," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(4-5), pages 895-915, September.
    9. Evsey D. Domar & Richard A. Musgrave, 1944. "Proportional Income Taxation and Risk-Taking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 58(3), pages 388-422.
    10. Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1992. "Capital requirements and the behaviour of commercial banks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1137-1170, June.
    11. Shackelford, Douglas A. & Shaviro, Daniel N. & Slemrod, Joel, 2010. "Taxation and the Financial Sector," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(4), pages 781-806, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul H. Kupiec & James M. O'Brien, 1998. "Deposit insurance, bank incentives, and the design of regulatory policy," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 4(Oct), pages 201-211.
    2. Javier Suárez, 1998. "Risk-taking and the prudential regulation of banks," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 22(3), pages 307-336, September.
    3. João A. C. Santos, 2000. "Bank capital regulation in contemporary banking theory: a review of the literature," BIS Working Papers 90, Bank for International Settlements.
    4. Georges Dionne, 2003. "The Foundationsof Banks' Risk Regulation: A Review of Literature," THEMA Working Papers 2003-46, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    5. Matthias Efing, 2012. "Bank Capital Regulation with an Opportunistic Rating Agency," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 12-19, Swiss Finance Institute.
    6. Ding, Haina & Guembel, Alexander & Ozanne, Alessio, 2020. "Market Information in Banking Supervision: The Role of Stress Test Design," TSE Working Papers 20-1144, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    7. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/810 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sebastián Nieto Parra, 2005. "The Macroeconomic Implications of the New Banking Capital Regulation in Emerging Markets: A Duopoly Model Adapted to Risk-Averse Banks," Post-Print hal-01020776, HAL.
    9. Nagarajan, S. & Sealey, C. W., 1995. "Forbearance, deposit insurance pricing, and incentive compatible bank regulation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1109-1130, September.
    10. Kristoffer Milonas, 2018. "Bank Taxes, Leverage, and Risk," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 145-177, October.
    11. Arupratan Daripa & Simone Varotto, 1997. "Agency Incentives and Reputational Distortions: a Comparison of the Effectiveness of Value-at-Risk and Pre-commitment in Regulating Market Risk," Bank of England working papers 69, Bank of England.
    12. Tri Vi Dang & Florian Morath, 2013. "The Taxation of Bilateral Trade with Endogenous Information," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2013-07, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    13. Santos, Joao A. C., 1999. "Bank capital and equity investment regulations," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 1095-1120, July.
    14. Arup Daripa & Simone Varotto, 2010. "Ex-Ante Versus Ex-Post Regulation Of Bank Capital," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Lloyd P Blenman & Harold A Black & Edward J Kane (ed.), Banking And Capital Markets New International Perspectives, chapter 2, pages 29-58, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/810 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Nagarajan, S. & Sealey, C. W., 1998. "State-contingent regulatory mechanisms and fairly priced deposit insurance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(9), pages 1139-1156, September.
    17. Loriana Pelizzon & Stephen Schaefer, 2005. "Pillar 1 vs. Pillar 2 Under Risk Management," NBER Working Papers 11666, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Farkas, Walter & Fringuellotti, Fulvia & Tunaru, Radu, 2020. "A cost-benefit analysis of capital requirements adjusted for model risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    19. Marshall, David A. & Prescott, Edward Simpson, 2001. "Bank capital regulation with and without state-contingent penalties," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 139-184, June.
    20. Sebastián Nieto, 2005. "The Macroeconomic Implications of the New Banking Capital Regulation in Emerging Markets: A Duopoly Model Adapted to Risk-Averse Banks," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, June.
    21. Arupratan Daripa & Simone Varotto, 1998. "Value at risk and precommitment: approaches to market risk regulation," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 4(Oct), pages 137-143.
    22. Fanti, Luciano, 2014. "The dynamics of a banking duopoly with capital regulations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 340-349.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Symmetric information; Bank portfolio choice; Capital regulation; Bank regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.