Abstract

Basel I introduced capital requirements for undrawn commitments, but only for revolvers with an original maturity greater than one year. We use this regulatory discontinuity to estimate the impact of capital regulation on the cost and composition of credit. Following Basel I, short-term commitment fees declined relative to long-term commitments and issuance of short-term facilities increased. Our results highlight the sensitivity of credit provision to capital regulation, particularly for banks with less capital. We are able to infer that low-capital banks are willing to forego twice as much income from fees to reduce required regulatory capital by a dollar.

This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.
Editor: Itay Goldstein
Itay Goldstein
Editor
Search for other works by this author on:

You do not currently have access to this article.