Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of corporate board structure on default risk of European banking firms. We focus on four core aspects of boards that have been addressed in Directive 2013/36/EU to strengthen the corporate governance of banks: the size of boards, their independence, the participation of female directors and CEO duality. We employ panel data analysis to study the 109 European listed banks between 2002 and 2019. Default risk is estimated by Merton’s (1974) distance to default. We take into account the presence of unobservable heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity and estimate the model using the dynamic difference and dynamic system GMM methodologies. The results show that the size of the board influences banks’ default risk. Furthermore, bank size, firm profitability and GDP also exert a considerable influence.

摘要

本文分析了公司董事会结构对欧洲银行业公司违约风险的影响。我们重点关注 2013/36/EU 号指令中针对加强银行公司治理的董事会的四个核心方面：董事会的规模、独立性、女性董事的参与和 CEO 双重身份。我们采用面板数据分析来研究 2002 年至 2019 年间的 109 家欧洲上市银行。违约风险由 Merton's ( 1974) 距离默认值。我们考虑了不可观察的异质性、同时性和动态内生性的存在，并使用动态差异和动态系统 GMM 方法估计模型。结果表明，董事会规模影响银行的违约风险。此外，银行规模、公司盈利能力和 GDP 也产生了相当大的影响。