Should boards of financial firms be blamed for the financial crisis? Using a large sample of data on nonfinancial and financial firms for the period 1996-2007, I document that the governance of financial firms is, on average, not obviously worse than in nonfinancial firms. In fact, using simple...

The Berle XIV: Developing a 21st Century Corporate Governance Model Conference asks whether there is a viable 21st Century Stakeholder Governance model. In our conference keynote article, [here], we argue that to answer that question yes requires restoring — to use Berle’s term — a...

“Common Ownership” is a phenomenon where shareholders hold substantial stakes in firms that impose externalities on each other. The “Common Ownership” hypothesis suggests that these shareholders may internalize some of these externalities amongst their portfolio firms. While most of the...

The author identifies key elements of governance, and the potential reasons for failures and highlights that the structure of boards, thrust on the adoption of best practices, and regulatory guidelines are necessary but not sufficient to ensure failsafe governance standards. The author...

Purpose - The need for robust governance standards in financial institutions requires no overemphasis. However, instances of governance failures have been a recurring global phenomenon. This paper examines the key elements of governance in financial institutions, evaluates reasons for failures...

This paper looks at the post-financial-crisis period, and the relationship between default risk and corporate governance for financial firms outside North America. Default risk is measured by both credit default swap spreads (CDS) and the Merton-type default probabilities from Bloomberg. Our...

The attention for the governance of financial sector supervisors is of a recent date. The debate has risen to the fore as part of the wider discussion about the appropriate institutional organization of financial supervision and the drive for compliance with international best practices in the...

The attention for the governance of financial sector supervisors is of a recent date. The debate has risen to the fore as part of the wider discussion about the appropriate institutional organization of financial supervision and the drive for compliance with international best practices in the...

Private equity buyouts have become a common element in the industrial development process. I survey the literature on the real economic effect of buyouts: employment, wages, productivity, and long-run investments. Employment tend to marginally fall after a buyout in most countries studied, with...