Ownership structure and financial institutes risk taking: evidence from Tunisian quoted bank (financial institute)

This paper investigates whether the ownership structure influences the risk taking of the Tunisian quoted banks over the period 2000-2008. Overall, it can be gathered from the results of this study that the effect of ownership structure on bank risk taking varies according to the type of risk. Firstly, this study finds that the ownership concentration increases the credit risk. However, the state ownership, the foreign ownership, the privatisation and the debt decrease the credit risk. Secondly, our results prove that the ownership concentration, the state ownership and the institutional ownership are positively associated with the liquidity risk. Nevertheless, the debt and the bank size have a negative effect on the liquidity risk. Thirdly, our findings show that the ownership concentration, the state ownership, the institutional ownership, the privatisation and the bank size lead to the reduction of the operational risk. In contrast, the foreign ownership and the debt increase the operational risk.