Using a sample from 1980 to 2018, we find evidence consistent with banks and insurers in the United States diversifying financial risk through their equity holdings. They tend to offset the risk of increased leverage by lowering the leverage of the non-financial firms in which they take an equity stake. We attribute this finding to the impact of risk-based capital regulations. Facing the high cost of equity, financial institutions are well incentivized to comply with increased capital requirements by reducing asset risk. Our results demonstrate that the scope of the induced de-risking activities of these institutions is not limited to their credit portfolios but extends to their equity exposure as well. We also show that non-financial firms that are concerned about being dropped from the portfolios of financial institutions could de-leverage to deviate from their theoretically optimal capital structures. These novel regularities need to be included in debates about capital regulations for banks and insurance companies.

中文翻译：

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通过持股去风险：资本要求下的银行和保险公司行为

使用 1980 年至 2018 年的样本，我们发现证据与美国的银行和保险公司通过持股分散金融风险一致。他们倾向于通过降低他们持有股权的非金融公司的杠杆率来抵消杠杆率增加的风险。我们将这一发现归因于基于风险的资本监管的影响。面对高昂的股权成本，金融机构受到了良好的激励，通过降低资产风险来满足增加的资本要求。我们的研究结果表明，这些机构的诱导去风险活动的范围不仅限于它们的信贷组合，还延伸到它们的股票敞口。我们还表明，担心从金融机构投资组合中退出的非金融公司可能会去杠杆化，从而偏离其理论上的最优资本结构。这些新规则需要纳入关于银行和保险公司资本监管的辩论。