Crawford School of Public Policy CAMA Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis Regulatory Stress Tests and Bank Responses CAMA Working Paper 77/2020 August 2020 Karel Janda Department of Banking and Insurance, University of Economics, Prague Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, ANU Oleg Kravtsov Department of Banking and Insurance, University of Economics, Prague Abstract In this paper, we investigate how the regulatory stress test framework in the European Union affects banks’ investment decisions and portfolio choices. Using the causal inference and event study methodology, we document a substantial impact of EU-wide stress tests in 2011, 2014 and 2016 on the banks’ portfolio strategies. The banks subject to regulatory stress tests tend to structure their portfolios with lower risk assets that is reflected in a decline in risk-weighted assets as compared to the control group. At the same time, the dynamic of realized risk that is measured by the proportion of non- performing exposure in portfolios remains unaffected. The estimates based on two alternative subsamples indicate that the magnitude of such effect rise with the increase in the size of the bank´s assets. | THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Keywords regulatory stress test, capital regulation, heterogeneous treatment effect, event study, instrumental variable JEL Classification G20, G21, G28 Address for correspondence: (E)
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