How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Capitalization Strategies?
European Banking Center Discussion Paper No. 2013-011
CentER Discussion Paper Series Nol 2013-054
48 Pages Posted: 7 Oct 2013 Last revised: 26 Dec 2019
There are 3 versions of this paper
How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Capitalization Strategies?
How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Capitalization Strategies?
How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Capitalization Strategies?
Date Written: October 7, 2013
Abstract
This paper examines how corporate governance and executive compensation affect bank capitalization strategies for an international sample of banks over the 2003-2011 period. ‘Good’ corporate governance, which favors shareholder interests, is found to give rise to lower bank capitalization. Boards of intermediate size, separation of the CEO and chairman roles, and an absence of anti-takeover provisions, in particular, lead to low bank capitalization. However, executive options and stock wealth invested in the bank is associated with better capitalization except just before the crisis in 2006. In that year stock options wealth was associated with lower capitalization which suggests that potential gains from taking on more bank risk outweighed the prospect of additional loss. Banks’ tendency to continue payouts to shareholders after experiencing negative income shocks are shown to reflect executive risk-taking incentives.
Keywords: Bank capital, Dividend payouts, Corporate governance, Executive compensation
JEL Classification: G21, M21
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation