Following the COVID shock, supervisors encouraged banks to use capital buffers to support the recovery. However, banks have been reluctant to do so. Provided th

This paper analyses banks' ability to use capital buffers in the euro area, taking into account overlapping capital requirements between the risk-based capital

Capital buffers are key macroprudential policy instruments. Regulatory capital buffers ("the buffers") were introduced after the global financial crisis to miti

Credit is key to support healthy and sustainable economic growth but excess aggregate credit growth can signal the build-up of imbalances and lead to systemic f

This paper provides some general lessons for the design of countercyclical capital buffers. Its main empirical contribution is to analyse conditioning variables