Using unique hand-collected data for 336 large banks across 48 countries, together with values of national culture, our empirical analysis uncovers three new robust findings. First, variations of bank risk-taking across national culture and CEO power are more pronounced when cultural values and CEO power indicators are high. Second, while the individualism dimension of national culture has a moderating influence, the uncertainty avoidance dimension has a reinforcing effect, on the relationship between CEO power and bank risk-taking. In more detail, the results for the average marginal effect of CEO power on risk for different cultural values show that CEO power has a negative (positive) or insignificant impact on bank risk-taking when the value of individualism (uncertainty avoidance) is low; however, the impact becomes positive (negative) and statistically significant as the value of individualism (uncertainty avoidance) increases. Third, intra-cultural diversity matters: ‘tight’ cultures (e.g., strong social norms) are more pronounced than ‘loose’ cultures (e.g., heterogeneous values) in influencing bank risk.

We investigate the simultaneous relationship among bank capital, risk and profitability, but also considering bank ownership and the emergence of Pan-African cross-border banks. We specify a simultaneous equation model and estimate it using hand-collected bank level data from all West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries for 2000–2014. We split the countries into lower middle-income (LMICs) and low-income (LICs) according to the World Bank classification. We uncover evidence that the sensitivity of bank profitability to an increase in capital ratio seems to be somewhat higher in LMICs (+0.10) than in LICs (+0.05). Moreover, we find that bank capital positions tend to comove positively with the business cycle in LICs, mimicking a key postulate of Basel III. After differentiating between cross-border Pan-African banks and foreign banks from outside the continent, we find that the overall effect of bank ownership on risk depends on the origin of banks (French versus Pan-African). These findings are robust to alternative estimation techniques and the use of competing measures of risk and profitability.

This paper attempts to evaluate the competitiveness of British banking in the presence of cross-selling and switching costs during 1993–2008. It presents estimates of a model of banking behaviour that encompasses switching costs as well as cross-selling of loans and off-balance sheet transactions. The evidence from panel estimation of the model indicates that the consumer faced high switching costs in the loan market in the latter part of the sample period, as a result of weaker competitiveness in the loan market. Additionally, the weaker competitiveness in the loan market appears to facilitate the cross-selling behaviour of British banks, which helps explain the rapid growth of non-interest income during the last two decades.

This paper reports an empirical assessment of competitive conditions among the major British banks, during a period of major structural change. Specifically, estimates of the Rosse–Panzar H-statistic are reported for a panel of 12 banks for the period 1980–2004. The sample banks correspond closely to the major British banking groups specified by the British Banking Association. The robustness of the results of the Rosse–Panzar methodology is tested by estimating the ratio of Lerner indices obtained from interest rate setting equations. The results confirm the consensus finding that competition in British banking is most accurately characterised by the theoretical model of monopolistic competition. There is evidence that the intensity of competition in the core market for bank lending remained approximately unchanged throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, competition appears to have become less intense in the non-core (off-balance sheet) business of British banks.

We depart from existing literature by invoking analysts’ forecasts to measure banking system opacity and then investigate the impact of such opacity on bank risk-taking, using a large panel of US bank holding companies, over the 1995–2013 period. We uncover three new results. Firstly, we find that opacity increases insolvency risks among banks. Secondly, we establish that the relationship between opacity and bank risk-taking is accentuated by the degree of banking market competition. Thirdly, we show that the bank business model moderates the risk-taking incentives of opaque banks, albeit only marginally. Overall, these findings suggest that the analysts forecast measure of bank opacity is useful for understanding risk-taking by publicly-traded banks, with important implications for bank stability.

This paper draws regulatory lessons for emerging stock markets from an empirical study of the relationship between transactions costs and share price volatility in the London Stock Exchange. We concentrate our analysis on direct pecuniary costs of trading, namely transactions taxes (stamp duty) and brokerage charges, which derive directly from regulation. In a novel contribution to the transactions cost literature, we identify stock market performance with various measures of market volatility, and distinguish among market volatility, fundamental volatility and excess volatility; we also propose some simple ways of identifying the separate impact of transactions costs on these volatility measures. Our findings suggest that changes in transactions costs have a significant and dependable effect on share price volatility but the sign of this effect depends critically on the concept of volatility being measured. Among the important lessons for emerging stock markets is that transactions costs are an important factor in share market volatility and the regulatory regime therefore needs to take account of the impact of regulation on such costs. This is particularly important for those emerging stock markets that rely on stamp duty or other transactions taxes as a regulatory tool.