Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio, 7, Milan 20122, Italy. E-mail: alessandra.tanda@unimi.it Capital regulation acts as an external force in the determination of bank capital and risk levels. Changes in the regulatory framework can influence banks’ decisions. Starting from the debate of the prudential regulation after the financial crisis, this paper reviews the main empirical contributions on the role of capital