Economic and financial debates no. 11: Regulatory changes and the cost of equity: evidence from French banks

In the paper, we first investigate the impact of an increase in capital requirements on the equity risk (beta) of listed banks in France. We find that an increase in capital ratios reduces banks’ systematic risk. This leads to a decrease in shareholders’ required return on equity, providing evidence in favour of the Modigliani-Miller theorem: the greater cost of capital due to higher capital ratios appears to be mitigated by the decrease in shareholders’ expected return on equity. We then analyze the impact of liquidity position and find almost no evidence so far that investors take banks’ liquidity risk into account.

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Economic and financial debates no. 11: Regulatory changes and the cost of equity: evidence from French banks
  • Published on 03/07/2014
  • FR
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Updated on: 03/19/2019 15:47