Non disponibile in italiano
Angelo Cuzzola
- 12 August 2025
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3094Details
- Abstract
- This study investigates the impact of supervisory stress testing on banks’ behaviors and their systemic risk implications. Utilizing confidential supervisory data from the European Banking Authority’s EU-wide stress tests in 2021 and 2023, we employ a difference-in-differences framework to analyze how these exercises influence portfolio management decisions among European banks. This methodology allows us to compare stress-tested banks with similar non-tested institutions before and after the stress test events, isolating the effects specifically associated with the EU-wide assessments. Our findings reveal significant patterns of anticipatory behavior, with banks strategically window-dressing their capital ratios before stress tests begin. This behavior is particularly pronounced among institutions that subsequently receive the lowest scores in terms of capital depletion. We document that these anticipatory adjustments lead to decreased portfolio similarity across banks, an effect that persists after the stress tests and remains consistent across different similarity measures. Importantly, such a decrease in similarity does not spin off into more granular business model or country clusters, thus limiting potential systemic risk through portfolio synchronization. Our results, while considering how financial institutions incorporate stress test considerations into their strategic decision-making, highlight the dual role of stress tests in enhancing individual bank resilience and reducing systemic vulnerabilities. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate on effective banking supervision and the design of regulatory stress testing frameworks.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G28 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Government Policy and Regulation
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
C23 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
- 10 May 2023
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2814Details
- Abstract
- The paper studies the central bank collateral framework and its impact on banks’ liquidity under an adverse stress test scenario. We construct a stress test model that accounts for a granular and multi-faceted representation of the liquidity of marketable and non-marketable assets. In particular, the model analyses banks’ strategic decisions to mobilise assets through four funding channels: unsecured loans, asset sales, private repurchase agreements, or Central Bank lending. We test three scenarios: the EBA regulatory stress test exercise, a shock to Russia and the Eastern European countries, and a shock to the Southern European countries. Results show that illiquidity can trigger insolvency and that liquidity adjustment can last significantly after the initial shock. We find evidence of a threshold in the benefits of expanding the collateral framework and highlight the heterogeneous effects across different jurisdictions and financial institutions. We find that bank equity losses are reduced in aggregate up to 17% at the tail of the loss distribution and on average by around 5% when financial institutions can rely on the collateral framework channel.
- JEL Code
- C63 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Mathematical Methods, Programming Models, Mathematical and Simulation Modeling→Computational Techniques, Simulation Modeling
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G01 : Financial Economics→General→Financial Crises
G28 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Government Policy and Regulation