Ample Reserves, Hollow Buffers: Reserve Distribution and Policy Incidence in U.S. Banking
Using Call Report microdata from 2001 to 2024, this paper shows that 39.2 percent of retail-franchise banks, holding 10.4 percent of sample deposits, fall below the historic 10 percent reserve-buffer benchmark. The lower tail emerged after reserve requirements went to zero and is concentrated among mid-sized, transaction-account-intensive banks.