VOX  CEPR Policy Portal

The Basel III reform raised banks’ capital requirement per risk-weighted assets considerably, while risk weights were largely unchanged. This column uses a simple model to explore whether these risk weights discourage productive business investments. The model shows that when firms face collateral constraints, the optimal risk weights on corporate loans should be ‘flatter’ than they are at present. A quantitative assessment, however, suggests that welfare losses from the current system may not be large.