Bank governance, regulation and risk-taking in Ghana

Abstract

Excessive risk-taking could spell doom for the financial market and the economy as a whole as evidenced by the recent global financial crisis of 2007/08. In this study, we document the impact of corporate governance on bank risk-taking behaviour whilst accommodating the moderating effect of forms of ownership on the relationship in a regulated environment as banks do not operate in a vacuum. A panel study with data spanning from 2000 to 2013 under the fixed effects model after several model diagnostics and performance of the Hausman specification test was used. We find reserve requirement regulation to significantly influence risk-taking positively. We advocate the reversal of the recent increase in the reserve requirement from 9% to 11% and rather recommend an increase in the regulatory capital adequacy ratio from the current 10%.