The financial crisis that erupted in 2007 has brought the issues of the size, risk, and regulation of banks to the attention of a wide audience. It is difficult to open a broadsheet newspaper or a business magazine without being confronted with some aspect of bank behaviour, be it their risk...

We analyze the appointments of outside CEOs of financial and non-financial firms as independent directors on US bank boards and their implications for the banks and the outside CEO firms. We show that outside CEOs from financial firms match with less traditional banks and their appointment...

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...

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...

We analyze whether four market-based measures of the global systemic importance of financial institutions offer early warning signals during three financial crises. The tests based on the 2007/2008 crisis show that only one measure (∆CoVaR) consistently adds predictive power to conventional...

Using a unique international dataset, we show that the CEOs of large banks exhibit an increased probability of forced turnover when their organizations are more exposed to idiosyncratic tail risks. The importance of idiosyncratic tail risk in CEO dismissals is strengthened when there is more...

Coordination problems amongst creditors are reduced when a firm's debt structure is concentrated in fewer debt types. Using a sample of US non-financial firms, we show that an increase in risk-taking incentives in CEO pay is associated with a greater debt concentration by debt type. This result...

We analyze the impact of information asymmetry on bank default risk in Europe from 1993 to 2011 and show that banks that are more difficult to value by investors are characterized by a higher default risk. The risk-increasing effect of information asymmetry is present both before and during the...

Outside CEOs from non-financial firms match with boards of lending-oriented banks and are sought for their networks. They do not improve board advising and monitoring but their appointment results in lending expansion, increased bank CEO compensation, and more bank debt for their firms. The...

Using 30 years of data on the acquisition of failed US commercial banks via Purchase and Assumption (P&A) transactions managed by the FDIC, and a matched-sample approach, we find long-term improvements in bank profitability, capital strength and portfolio risk for the combined entity. These...