We analyze shareholders' incentives to change the leverage of a firm that has already borrowed substantially. As a result of debt overhang, shareholders have incentives to resist reductions in leverage that make the remaining debt safer. This resistance is present even without any government...

The global trend towards tighten regulation of financial institutions and the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) may hasten the unwinding of cross-shareholdings in Japan, and there are signs that this is already happening. Finding buyers for such shares is therefore a...

The legal protection of shareholders is the backbone of any corporate governance system. In a banking setting, the legal protection of depositors is as important. The safety net designed to protect depositors and prevent bank runs is composed of the explicit deposit insurance and the implicit...

Sound corporate governance is essential for a well-functioning banking system and the integrity of financial markets. The paper discusses the corporate governance of Italian banks, its regulatory framework, and the specific challenges arising from the role played by foundations and large...

This paper investigates the effects of ownership patterns on bank cost and profit efficiencies taking a sample of 607 commercial banks operating in 53 African countries during the period 2005-2015. Using pooled and modified true fixed effects (TFE) stochastic frontier panel approaches, we obtain...

This study examines the effect of ownership structure on the risk-taking behavior of banks in ASEAN countries. Using a sample of 96 commercial banks in ASEAN countries from 2002 to 2018, the study demonstrates that the relationship between ownership structure and bank risk-taking behavior is...

We explore the implications of directors' networks for company valuation in a concentrated ownership environment and in pyramidal control structures. Using common centrality indexes on a sample of 727 directors serving in 105 Israeli listed firms, we show that the effect is very dependent on the...

Minority and black owned banks were significantly less likely to receive funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) Community Development Capital Initiative (CDCI). A non-minority bank with the median characteristics was approximately ten times more likely to obtain TARP funds than an...

We explore the effects of ownership concentration on the risk-taking behavior of banks. Our analysis focuses on East Asian countries because these nations have successfully implemented the Basel standards and demonstrate a high degree of regulatory convergence. For the period from 2005 to 2009,...

This paper investigates the impact of regulation and ownership on the performance of banks in 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We test the hypothesis that the effect of regulation on bank profitability depends on the type of ownership structure. The public and...