The view that the independent directors of large banks should contribute to safeguarding the interests of bank creditors and taxpayers, by exercising a stringent risk oversight of bank executives, has gained ground in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 crisis. Using a cross-country sample of large...

Banks are growing ever larger compared to their national economies. We show that increases in relative bank size (measured as a bank's liabilities divided by national GDP) are linked to banks displaying higher tail risk. This effect is not entirely due to risk channels that disproportionately...

Advocates of diversifying bank income sources often argue that diversification improves the resilience of banks during periods of distress. To test this proposition, we analyze the impact of income diversification on the performance of Italian banks during the recent financial crisis. Using...