We investigate whether bank performance during the recent credit crisis is related to chief executive officer (CEO …) incentives before the crisis. We find some evidence that banks with CEOs whose incentives were better aligned with the interests … larger fraction of compensation in cash bonuses for their CEOs did not perform worse during the crisis. Bank CEOs did not …

We investigate whether a bank’s performance during the 1998 crisis, which was viewed at the time as the most dramatic … crisis since the Great Depression, predicts its performance during the recent financial crisis. One hypothesis is that a bank … that has an especially poor experience in a crisis learns and adapts, so that it performs better in the next crisis …