Governance and the Financial Crisis

Adams, Renee B.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1398583

Governance and the Financial Crisis

ECGI - Finance Working Paper No. 248/2009

27 Pages Posted: 4 May 2009 Last revised: 23 Jul 2012

See all articles by Renee B. Adams

Renee B. Adams

University of Oxford; ABFER

There are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 4, 2009

Abstract

Should boards of financial firms be blamed for the financial crisis' Using a large sample of data on nonfinancial and financial firms for the period 1996-2007, I document that the governance of financial firms is, on average, not obviously worse than in nonfinancial firms. Even the issue of executive compensation is not as clear cut as suggested by the media. I also document that bank directors earned significantly less compensation than their counterparts in nonfinancial firms and banks receiving bailout money had boards that were more independent than in other banks. I discuss implications of these findings.

Keywords: financial crisis, boards, executive compensation, financial firms

JEL Classification: G32

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Adams, Renée B., Governance and the Financial Crisis (May 4, 2009). ECGI - Finance Working Paper No. 248/2009. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1398583 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1398583