Risk Governance and Performance: Evidence From Eurozone’s Large Banks

Abstract

In this paper, by means of econometric models, we investigate the relationship between risk governance and performance of the Eurozone’s Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs), over the period 2014-2018. The results of the quantitative analysis show that the choice to appoint a Chief Risk Officer (CRO) can be useful to shrink the bank risk-taking. Furthermore, we find that the importance attributed by the bank to the CRO – in terms of membership of the board of directors and in terms of remuneration – is positively correlated to both profitability and bank risk-taking. In addition, the analysis shows that the activity carried out by the Risk committee can be helpful to break down the risks.