We collected over 1600 estimates on the relationship between bank capital and lending and construct 40 variables to capture the context in which these estimates are obtained. Accounting for potential publication bias, we find that a 1 percentage point (pp) increase in capital (regulatory) ratio results in around 0.3 pp increase in annual credit growth, while changes to capital requirements cause a decrease of around 0.7 pp. Using Bayesian and frequentist model averaging, we show that the relationship between bank capital and lending changes over time, reflecting the post‐crisis period of increasingly demanding bank capital regulation and subdued profitability. We also find that the reported estimates of semi‐elasticities are significantly influenced by the empirical approach chosen by researchers. Our findings suggest that the literature fails to provide policymakers with reliable estimates of the effects of capital regulation on bank lending, and our study offers insights that could help guide future research.
This paper tests whether a series of changes to capital requirements transmitted to a change to banks’ pricing policy. We compile a rich bank-level supervisory dataset covering the banking sector in the Czech Republic over the period 2004–2019. We estimate that the changes to the overall capital requirements did not force banks to alter their pricing policy. The impact on bank interest margins and loan rates is found to lie in a narrow range around zero irrespective of loan category. Our estimates allow us to rule out effects even for less-capitalised banks and small banks. The results obtained contradict estimates from other studies reporting significant transmission of capital regulation to lending rates and interest margins. We therefore engage in a deeper discussion of why this might be the case. Our estimates may be used in the ongoing discussion of the benefits and costs of capital-based regulation in banking.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11149-022-09448-5.
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