Risk Management, Corporate Governance, and Bank Performance in the Financial Crisis

45 Pages Posted: 13 Oct 2011

See all articles by Markus Schmid

Markus Schmid

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance; University of St. Gallen - School of Finance; Swiss Finance Institute; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Gabriele Sabato

Wiserfunding

Vincent Aebi

University of St. Gallen

Date Written: October 11, 2011

Abstract

The recent financial crisis has raised several questions with respect to the corporate governance of financial institutions. This paper investigates whether risk management-related corporate governance mechanisms, such as for example the presence of a chief risk officer (CRO) in a bank’s executive board and whether the CRO reports to the CEO or directly to the board of directors, are associated with a better bank performance during the financial crisis of 2007/2008. We measure bank performance by buy-and-hold returns and ROE and we control for standard corporate governance variables such as CEO ownership, board size, and board independence. Most importantly, our results indicate that banks, in which the CRO directly reports to the board of directors and not to the CEO (or other corporate entities), exhibit significantly higher (i.e., less negative) stock returns and ROE during the crisis. In contrast, standard corporate governance variables are mostly insignificantly or even negatively related to the banks’ performance during the crisis.

Keywords: Chief risk officer, Corporate governance, Risk governance, Bank performance, Financial Crisis

JEL Classification: G01, G21, G32, G34

Suggested Citation

Schmid, Markus and Sabato, Gabriele and Aebi, Vincent, Risk Management, Corporate Governance, and Bank Performance in the Financial Crisis (October 11, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1942896 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1942896

Markus Schmid (Contact Author)

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance ( email )

Unterer Graben 21
St. Gallen, 9000
Switzerland

University of St. Gallen - School of Finance ( email )

Unterer Graben 21
St.Gallen, CH-9000
Switzerland

Swiss Finance Institute

c/o University of St. Gallen
Dufourstrassse 50
St. Gallen, SG 9000
Switzerland

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Gabriele Sabato

Wiserfunding ( email )

Grand Union House
20 Kentish Town Road
London, NW1 9NX
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.wiserfunding.com

Vincent Aebi

University of St. Gallen ( email )

University of St. Gallen
Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance
St. Gallen, SG 9000
Switzerland

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