Suchergebnisse

Banks are growing ever larger compared to their national economies. We show that increases in relative bank size (measured as a bank's liabilities divided by national GDP) are linked to banks displaying higher tail risk. This effect is not entirely due to risk channels that disproportionately expose relatively large banks to systematic tail risks, sovereign risks, or banking crises. Instead, we detect a persistent component in the tail risk of relatively large banks that is bank-specific and connected to government guarantees. Furthermore, as banks grow in relative size, tail risks are shifted to debtholders without wealth gains for shareholders.

AbstractAlthough public management reforms around the world have given business experts an enhanced role in the governance of public sector organizations, the impact of this change is poorly understood. Drawing from the literature on board human capital as a theoretical framework and focusing on the case of hospital boards in the English National Health Service, this concern is addressed by investigating whether increasing the presence of individuals with business expertise has any significant relationship with organizational performance. The findings show that while business expertise appears to have no influence on service quality, it does have a positive effect on financial performance. However, this only applies to governing boards that are less experienced in terms of their collective tenure. The findings lend partial support to board capital theory but also show that in certain conditions generic business expertise can be a valuable asset for public sector organizations.

The view that the independent directors of large banks should contribute to safeguarding the interests of bank creditors and taxpayers, by exercising a stringent risk oversight of bank executives, has gained ground in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 crisis. Using a cross-country sample of large banks for the period 2004-2014, we show that post 2009 an increase in board independence leads to more prudent bank risk-taking compared to the rest of the sample period. This effect materializes via independent boards favoring increases in bank capitalization and decreases in bank portfolio risk after the global crisis. Additional analyses demonstrate, however, that these results do not hold for all large banks in our sample but are confined to the group of banks benefiting from a government bailout during the crisis. In most large international banks board independence does not contribute to safeguarding the interests of bank creditors and taxpayers by constraining bank risk-taking.

The view that the independent directors of large banks should contribute to safeguarding the interests of bank creditors and taxpayers, by exercising a stringent risk oversight of bank executives, has gained ground in the aftermath of the 2007–2009 crisis. Using a cross-country sample of large banks for the period 2004–2014, we show that post 2009 an increase in board independence leads to more prudent bank risk-taking compared to the rest of the sample period. This effect materializes via independent boards favoring increases in bank capitalization and decreases in bank portfolio risk after the global crisis. Additional analyses demonstrate, however, that these results do not hold for all large banks in our sample but are confined to the group of banks benefiting from a government bailout during the crisis. In most large international banks board independence does not contribute to safeguarding the interests of bank creditors and taxpayers by constraining bank risk-taking.