This paper seeks to explain how failures in corporate governance contributed to the global financial crisis. More precisely, it studies how the current corporate governance systems failed to safeguard against aggressive risk taking and to provide the control that companies need in order to...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of both firm-specific and external factors on the risk taking of European insurance companies. The extent of risk taking is quantified through variations in stock prices and these are explained by firm-specific and external factors that proxy the...

Derivatives are designed as complex financial instruments and their main aim is to manage the risk associated with the underlying asset, in order to ensure against fluctuations in value, or to profit from periods of inactivity, instability or decline. In recent years financial derivatives have...

This paper studies the extent to which risk-taking incentives of CEOs and other governance features in a range of years prior to the recent financial crisis were related to the write-downs of U.S. financial institutions during the crisis. We document that institutions whose CEOs had particularly...

This paper examines two theories of the 'subprime crisis' or 'GFC'. The 'financial architecture' theory holds that the failure of the financial system was fundamentally driven by institutional faults, especially in private sector risk management and public sector regulation and underpins the...

The article presents the implications of the global financial crisis upon the Polish banking sector, formed under the influence of cross-border mergers and acquisitions. It illustrates the consequences of financial problems of foreign strategic shareholders in banks operating in Poland upon the...

The present paper reviews the causes that led to the financial crisis. Unlike other interpretations, this paper does not place main significance on a single source or on a set of causes. I consider all major standpoints highlighted by research and media prior, during and after the financial...

Chairman statement in the corporate annual report is classified as narrative accounting and until today it remains as voluntary disclosure. Without guidelines by the accounting standards setters and close monitoring by the regulators, it is hypothesised that company management may exaggerate the...

The subprime financial crisis has sparked our interest in identifying channels through which US crisis spread across 20 developed and emerging stock markets. Empirical results of GARCH and EGARCH estimated models show a high persistence and asymmetric effect of volatility. Estimation of an...