Impacts of the Basle Capital Standard on Japanese Banks' Behavior

This paper examines how the risk based capital standards, the so-called Basle Accord between 1990 and 1993. As the Japanese stock prices fell, banks' latent capital gains, which are part of tier II capital, became smaller. Empirical findings are consistent with a view that banks with lower capital ratios tended to issue more subordinated debts (tier II) and to reduce lending (risk assets).