Bank Governance, Regulation and Risk Taking: Evidence from Tunisia (original) (raw)

Banking Governance and Risk: The Case of Tunisian Conventional Banks

Review of Economic Perspectives, 2000

Banks are in the business of taking risks. The 3 pillars of Basel II capital accord highlight the crucial role of informative risk disclosures in enhancing market discipline. The specific role and responsibilities of the board of directors or supervisory boards in banking institutions continue, however, to fuel debate. Findings of the literature are often inconclusive. The main contribution of this study is examining how board characteristics affect risk in banking industry. We explore this relationship by using many econometric approaches. The empirical analysis based on a sample of 11 Tunisian conventional banks over the period 2001-2011 reports the following results when using GLS RE: small and dual functions boards are associated with more insolvency risk but have no significant effect on credit and global risks. The presence of independent directors within the board generates an increase in global risk but has no significant effect on insolvency and credit risks. A lower CEO ownership has no significant effect with all measures of risks. Finally, banking capitalization is associated with more insolvency risk, and small size banks assume lower credit risk. These findings are performed by using a GMM in system approach.

Ownership Structure, Board Structure And Performance In The Tunisian Banking Industry

Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting and Finance, 2015

The 2011 Tunisian revolution has played a role in bringing the corporate governance agenda to the forefront. This political change in Tunisia has revealed persistent governance problems in its banking industry. This paper presents the results of research conducted on how different aspects of corporate governance can influence bank performance. The sample comprises 10 Tunisian commercial banks for the period from 1997 to 2010. The performance-governance relationship is estimated using a range of econometric techniques. The findings reveal strong support for a negative association between blockholder ownership and performance. Our results show that the bank board size is related to directors' ability to monitor and advise management. Additionally, CEO duality is positively associated with performance. Further analysis suggests that the presence of government officials on banks' board of directors decreases bank performance. Taken together, our findings offer recommendations to...

The impact of ownership structure on bank risk: case of Tunisia

Developing Country Studies, 2014

The ownership structure and risk are two important variables in the banking sector. Indeed , shareholders have incentives to monitor bank risk according to their objectives. In the context of this article , we used a sample of 19 banks in Tunisia over the period(2000-2010). Through the method of panel static , we found that public ownership has a negative effect on bank risk , while private ownership and foreign ownership have a positive effect on bank risk.

The Impact of Board Characteristics and Ownership Structure on the Performance in Tunisian Commercial Banks

We investigate how internal governance mechanisms affect performance in banks. Using a sample of 132 observations representing 11 Tunisian (universal) commercial banks listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange (BVMT) over the period 2005-2016, we employ a multiple regression analysis. We show that board size has a positive and statistically significant impact on the performance of Tunisian banks. Similarly, board independency is positively associated with bank performance. Whereas CEO duality has a positive effect on return on assets but it has a negative effect on return on equity. We also find that institutional ownership has a negative impact on banking performance while foreign ownership has a positive impact on the ROA and a negative effect on the ROE. We finally show that state ownership has a negative impact on the banking performance. Overall, our results underline the influences of both board and ownership structure in corporate governance within banks.

Analysis of the Impact of Governance on Bank Performance: Case of Commercial Tunisian Banks

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2016

Most studies that have investigated the relationship between governance and performance of banks were interested in the developed countries and to a lesser extent, the emerging countries. In this study, we tried to look from an empirical perspective, at the impact of governance through some internal mechanisms, on the performance of banks in a developing country like Tunisia. According to Kolsi and Ghorbel (2011), the effect of governance on the financial and stock market performance is still unknown. This result goes in the same direction as that of Adjaoud et al. (journal compilation 15, 2007), leading to the lack of connection between governance and traditional performance measures. The empirical analysis is performed on a sample of eight Tunisian commercial banks listed on the Stock Exchange over the period 2000-2011; we can conclude that there is no standard governance structure and that each bank should adopt the appropriate governance structure to improve the performance of the financial market, in general, and the banking market, in particular. The verification of this central assumption in the Tunisian context, therefore, is the fundamental contribution of this study. It is for this reason that the results we, even modest, have achieved allow enriching the issue of the impact of some governance variables varying according to the chosen performance measurement, which is a neglected theme in the Tunisian context.

Bank governance, regulation and risk taking

2009

This paper conducts the first empirical assessment of theories concerning relationships among risk taking by banks, their ownership structures, and national bank regulations. We focus on conflicts between bank managers and owners over risk, and show that bank risk taking varies positively with the comparative power of shareholders within the corporate governance structure of each bank. Moreover, we show that the relation between bank risk and capital regulations, deposit insurance policies, and restrictions on bank activities depends critically on each bank's ownership structure, such that the actual sign of the marginal effect of regulation on risk varies with ownership concentration. These findings have important policy implications as they imply that the same regulation will have different effects on bank risk taking depending on the bank's corporate governance structure.

Regulation and risk taking in the banking industry: evidence from Tunisia

Afro-Asian J. of Finance and Accounting, 2012

This research highlights the impact of capital regulation and franchise value on bank risk taking in the Tunisian context. Using a panel set of Tunisian commercial banks during the period spanning from 1997 to 2007, our study puts in evidence that stringent capital requirements help deterring the bank risk taking. Similarly, banks with high franchise value may have an incentive to avoid risky business strategies. However, empirical findings clearly bring forth that the intensity of such decrease varies with the risk taking measurement. Capital regulation allows reducing both the market risk and the insolvency risk but has no effect on the specific risk of the bank; while the franchise value has a negative effect on only the market risk of the bank. Overall, our study indicates that capital allocation should be more risk sensitive and that the whole bank risk taking ought to be deeply investigated and quantified.

Corporate governance and systemic risk of Tunisian banks

International Journal of Corporate Governance, 2018

This paper studies the relationship between systemic risk measures and internal governance mechanisms of banking institutions and managers' entrenchment level. Our study examines a sample of 11 Tunisian listed banks over the 2006 to 2013 period. The aim is to determine systemic banks, the main governance internal mechanisms and managers' entrenchment level that contributed to attenuating or amplifying individual and overall systemic risk. The empirical results indicate that the internal governance mechanisms of banking institutions are positively associated with the long run marginal expected shortfall (LRMES), and that the presence of a risk management committee has no effect on the level of systemic risk incurred by banks. However, the regression on the LRMES and the firm's percentage of financial sector shortfall reveals that the respect of the norms of governance of the banking institutions leads to the minimisation of the individual contribution of the banks to the overall systemic risk of the Tunisian banking sector.

Governance Effect of Board of Directors on Banking Performance: Evidence From Tunisia

International Journal of Financial Research, 2020

The research tried to assess the impact of board characteristics on Tunisian bank's performance. The empirical study is based on a sample of 10 commercial banks during the period 2008-2017. Firstly, we proceed to estimate the impact of board characteristics on bank performance measured by Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equities (ROE) ratios. The estimation results achieved have positive and negative effects on the economic and financial bank's profitability. Hence, on the one hand, the estimate test gives a positive impact of ratio Market to book and the ratio Interest / Commissions in case of economic performance (VIC). On the other hand, these two ratios have a negative impact on performance measured by the ROE and ROA. Regarding the board and bank size, the estimate test gives a negative impact on economic profitability and a positive impact on financial profitability.

How does internal governance affect banks’ financial stability? Empirical evidence from Egypt

International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, 2021

This paper investigates whether internal governance mechanisms were associated with the financial stability of Egyptian banks over the period 2010–2019. To this end, a GMM regression analysis was employed using 252 firm-year observations. The results, in general, indicate that the level of banks’ financial stability is positively associated with board size, board meetings, and board gender. In contrast, the results show that board education and the ownership of shares by directors are negatively associated with banks’ financial stability. More interestingly, our results demonstrate that higher financial stability is significantly associated with lower board independence, the presence of CEO duality, and fewer audit committee meetings. These striking results can be attributed to the argument that the presence of independent directors on the board may reduce the CEO’s willingness to share information with board members, causing a high level of uncertainty in the decision-making proces...