Bank Resolution Regimes and Systemic Risk

Abstract

We assess the ability of bank resolution frameworks to deal with systemic banking fragility. Using a novel and detailed database on bank resolution regimes in 22 member countries of the Financial Stability Board, we show that systemic risk, as measured by Delta CoVaR, increases more for banks in countries with more comprehensive bank resolution frameworks after negative system-wide shocks, such as Lehman Brothers' default, while it decreases more after positive system-wide shocks, such as Mario Draghi's whatever it takes speech. These results suggest that more comprehensive bank resolution may exacerbate the effect of system-wide shocks and should not be solely relied on in cases of systemic distress.