Using a sample of almost 300 European banks, we show that the concentration of ownership leads to larger capital buffers, consistent with theories of interest alignment and the charter value theory. Mixed empirical findings of previous literature suggest that external factors may affect the disciplinary role of controlling owners. In this paper, we demonstrate that the stabilizing impact of concentrated ownership is weaker when the level of regulatory discipline is higher. We also observe a weaker stabilizing impact when the level of market discipline is higher, while this effect seems to be less robust. Moreover, we find evidence for the too-big-to-fail phenomenon, since the stabilizing impact of ownership concentration on capital buffers is significantly weaker for systemically important institutions. Our findings indicate that bank owners are aware of the risk of losing charter value when external monitoring is lower and underline that internal governance of banks should not be discussed in isolation from external governance factors.

使用近300家欧洲银行的样本，我们发现所有权的集中会导致更大的资本缓冲，这与利益调整理论和宪章价值理论相一致。先前文献的混合经验发现表明，外部因素可能会影响控制所有者的纪律作用。在本文中，我们证明了当监管纪律水平越高时，集中所有权的稳定影响就越弱。当市场纪律水平较高时，我们还观察到稳定作用较弱，而这种作用似乎不那么稳健。此外，我们发现存在太大失败风险的证据，因为所有权集中化对资本缓冲的稳定影响对于具有系统重要性的机构而言明显较弱。