Stress Tests for Beginners

The big news on the banking front this week will be the public release of the stress test results, currently scheduled for Thursday (originally it was supposed to be today). Over at The Hearing, I wrote an overview post recapping the context for the stress tests and the current dilemma the administration faces: whether to keep quiet about the details, and risk undermining the credibility of the exercise, or whether to release signficant bank-specific information, and risk undermining the reputation of certain weak banks.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of the stress tests, and arguably regulators should have been doing them constantly as the crisis worsened, so that this particular iteration would not create such a political challenge. The idea is that not only do you want to know how much capital a bank has right now, but you want to know how much capital it will have left if the economy continues to get worse. If you did this analysis in a way that was credible with the market, it would go a long way toward restoring confidence in the financial system, since the current lack of confidence is based on people’s not trusting the information they are getting.

Stress Tests for Beginners « The Baseline Scenario

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