Excessive (substantially above peer) litigation against a bank is indicative of operational risk because it often suggests failure to maintain a strong system of internal control. We examine the relation between bank performance and weak internal control using legal expense as a proxy. We find that legal expense is a strong determinant of loan losses and stock returns. Bank regulators should require reporting of legal expense on call reports to help identify institutions with weaknesses in internal control. Current reporting creates unnecessary information asymmetries because investors are not well informed about operational risk, leading to mispricing of bank securities.

Many of the previous studies on contagion effects in the banking industry focused on the failure of a large bank to determine whether the adverse effects spread to other banks. Yet, little is known whether other publicized bank failures cause contagion effects, and why the effects may vary among bank failures. Given the changes in the banking environment over time, contagion effects could be conditioned on the characteristics of the failing bank and of the banking environment at that time. We assess 99 publicized bank failures over the 1980–1996 period, and find that contagion effects exist in general for the surviving rivals of the failed bank. The degree of contagion effects varies over time (among bank failures), and is stronger when the failed bank is a multibank holding company, when the failed bank is publicly held, when the failed bank is relatively large, when the rivals are relatively small, and when the rivals have relatively low capital levels. The contagion effects are less pronounced in the period following the passage of FIRREA. Furthermore, the total risk-shifts of surviving rival banks in response to the announcement of a failed bank are inversely related to their capital level, and total risk-shifts of rival banks are less pronounced for failures occurring just after the passage of FIRREA. The results suggest that a bank’s exposure to possible contagion effects due to a bank failure can be partially controlled by a bank’s managerial policies and by regulatory policies.

Bank acquisitions have increased in recent years, as more banks attempt to exploit potential synergies, economies of scale, and other benefits. Numerous studies have determined that bank acquisitions generate strong positive valuation effects for targets on average, while the evidence of the impact on acquirers is mixed. Our objectives are: (1) determine whether the announcement of a bank acquisition transmits intra-industry signals; (2) explain why the intra-industry effects vary across acquisition announcements; and (3) explain why the valuation effects of individual rival banks vary. We find that bank acquisition announcements generate significant positive intra-industry effects, on average. The intra-industry effects of rival bank portfolios are not uniform across announcements, as they are conditioned by variables that could signal information about the probability that rival banks will become takeover targets. The valuation effects of rival bank portfolios are positively related to the valuation effects of the target banks, and inversely related to the size and prior performance of rival bank portfolios. Furthermore, the valuation effects are more favorable for individual rival banks that are ultimately acquired. To the extent that these variables reflect the probability of being acquired in the future, the intra-industry effects appear to be more favorable for acquisitions in which there is a higher probability that the corresponding rivals will become targets. Overall, investors discriminate based on event-specific and rival bank-specific characteristics when interpreting the signal transmitted as a result of bank acquisitions.

This study finds significant changes in capital market measures of risk following the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley for US financial services firms. Shorter-term measures of risk shifts are positive, on average, and consistent with the mandatory nature of the disclosure and governance provisions. Longer-term total and unsystematic risk shifts are negative, on average, and consistent with reductions in investor uncertainty as transparency improved. We find that the changes in shorter-term and longer-term risk measures vary inversely with the strength of disclosure and governance characteristics. The financial market rewarded (punished) firms with stronger (weaker) disclosure and stronger (weaker) governance.

The Sarbanes–Oxley (Sarbox) legislation aimed to reduce the opacity of financial statements and improve the integrity of financial reporting by enhancing corporate disclosure and governance practices. We estimate the valuation effects of Sarbox for firms in the financial services industry and find that, except for securities firms, these firms significantly benefited from its adoption. As hypothesized, these positive effects may be attributed to expected improvement in the transparency of the relatively opaque financial services firms. We find that the cross-sectional variation in the valuation effects can be explained by disclosure and governance characteristics. Several of the significant factors are supportive of a compliance cost hypothesis. In particular, we find that the effects were less favorable for firms with less independent audit committees, without a financial expert on the audit committee, with less financial statement footnote disclosures, with less involved CEOs, and if they were smaller. In addition, reflecting the value of stronger governance, more favorable effects occurred for firms with a greater degree of independence of the board and the board committees, when there is greater motivation and ability of board members to monitor the firm, and with a greater degree of institutional ownership. Lastly, we find the wealth effects of firms viewed as non-compliant are significantly lower than firms viewed as compliant, and the variation across the group of non-compliant firms is explained by disclosure and governance measures.

This study investigates the profit efficiency (PROFEFF) of small banks (those under $500 million in total assets) for 1990–96. Assuming that small banks and large banks use the same production technology, we find, consistent with Berger and Mester [J. Bank. Finance 21 (1997) 875], that small banks are more profit efficient than large banks. Small banks in non-metropolitan statistical areas (non-MSA) areas are consistently more profit efficient than small banks in MSAs. Cross-sectional analysis of the correlates of the PROFEFF estimates suggests that structure–performance factors, relationship–development factors, and expense-preference behavior play an important role in explaining the PROFEFF of small US commercial banks.

The stock price effects for the domestic competitors of foreign acquisition targets in the US are found to be significantly positive. These results imply that signals of favorable industry conditions conveyed through cross-border acquisitions dominate any perceived changes in competitive balance. Consistent with the information-signaling hypothesis, the stock price effects are more favorable for relatively small competitors, for rivals with stock returns that are highly correlated with the target’s stock returns, when the targets experience favorable stock price effects, in technologically-intense industries, for rivals with poor prior performance, and with related acquisitions. Consistent with the competitive hypothesis, the stock price effects are less favorable with high degrees of financial leverage and when the acquirers already have a presence in the US.

Numerous studies have shown that the valuation effects of corporate policies are conditioned on corporate control. A partial acquisition serves as a unique form of corporate control that has not been thoroughly researched as a control mechanism. When firms are partially acquired, the impact of their subsequent corporate policies may be affected by the degree of control imposed by the partial acquirer. Our primary objective is to test this hypothesis by (1) measuring valuation effects of the partial target and partial acquirer in response to policies enacted by the partially acquired firm (after becoming a partial target), and (2) conducting a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis for each policy which incorporate proxies for the degree of control by the partial acquirer. We find that partial targets and partial acquirers experience significant valuation effects in response to some policies enacted by the target. We also find that the valuation effects on a partial target in response to its subsequent policies are commonly conditioned by the degree of the partial acquirer's control.

We test the hypothesis that efficient internal capital markets mitigate the negative announcement returns surrounding seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Our predictions are based on the argument that efficiency reduces uncertainty regarding the value of assets-in-place. Having established the inverse association between our efficiency measures and uncertainty, we show that the efficiency measures are positively associated with SEO announcement returns, particularly among firms with multiple segment codes. The positive relation suggests that efficiency mitigates uncertainty regarding the value of assets-in-place, and this is the channel through which more favorable announcement returns are produced in response to the SEOs of high efficiency firms.

We examine changes in bank risk following the passage of the Riegle–Neal Act of 1994 and find a significant decline in bank risk. The extent of interstate banking activity and the status of state-level interstate banking laws are important in explaining the risk reduction. Banks with assets in multiple states experience a significant reduction in risk whereas banks with assets in one state experience no significant change in risk. Banks in states with the most restrictive interstate banking provisions experience a significant decrease in risk whereas banks in states with more liberal interstate banking provisions experience a significant increase in risk.