N°25-11: Banks’ Stock Market Reaction to Prudential Policy Announcements. The Role of Central Bank Independence and Financial Stability Sentiment

We leverage differences in central bank independence and financial stability sentiment across countries to investigate the variability in banks' stock market reactions to prudential policy announcements during the COVID-19 crisis. Our findings reveal that the relaxation of both macro and micro-prudential policies leads to negative cumulative abnormal returns (CARs), the reaction being attenuated in countries where the central bank is more independent or communicates deteriorations in financial stability. The CARs around the announcement dates are 0.75 percentage points (pp) and 6.89 pp higher in countries with greater versus lesser central bank independence, for macro- and micro-prudential policy announcements. The difference is close to 3.73 pp and 5.65 pp between banks based in countries where the central bank communicates a negative versus a positive sentiment about financial stability. The positive effect of higher degrees of central bank independence and deteriorations in financial stability sentiment on bank market valuation is enhanced for smaller banks, and in countries characterized by greater fiscal flexibility, and a higher prevalence of privately owned banks.