Basel Capital Adequacy Agreements and Bank Risk: Some Australian Evidence

This paper examines the impact of the Basel agreements (Basel I introduced in 1988, Basel I with market risk in 1998 and Basel II in 2008), on the level of systematic risk of the Australian big four banks. An augmented market model with three dummy variables is employed to capture any changes in systematic risk after each agreement was introduced. We contribute to the strand of literature on the effectiveness of the Basel agreements by providing evidence consistent with the view that the Basel agreements did not help to control bank risk, but instead increased it. In particular, we find that bank risk increased after Basel I and Basel II. Basel I with market risk partially achieved its goal with the Westpac Banking Corporation and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited showing decreased risk while the National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia had no change.