Regulatory Banking Leverage : What Do We Know?

Financial institution's substantial leverage is relevant in explaining the latest global financial crisis n 2008. However, the concept of banking leverage is not new and relates to important topics of study in the banking literature. Through a sample of 209 articles from major journals in the areas of finance and economics, we perform a bibliographic review of the connection between banking leverage and other major banking topics. We seek to contribute to the discussion of banking leverage through a systematic survey of the characteristics of the articles related to this theme. We use science mapping as a bibliometric method and identify influential articles with a strong citation network. The results also indicate gaps for future research. For instance, we identify the need for further studies of banking leverage in emerging countries