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Taking the lord's name in vain: The impact of connected directors on 19th century British banks |
Abstract
"This paper utilizes data on the presence of prominent individuals – that is, those with political (e.g., Members of Parliament) and aristocratic titles (e.g., lords) – on the boards of directors of English and Welsh banks from 1879 to 1909 to investigate whether the appointment of well-connected directors enhanced equity value for bank shareholders. Our analysis of panel data shows that the appointment of connected directors did not increase equity returns (as measured by the capital gain plus dividend yield on bank shares). In fact, we find that the appointment of MPs to directorships had negative effects on bank equity returns. Our event-study analysis corroborates this finding, showing that a bank's shares exhibited negative abnormal returns when their directors were elected to Parliament. Taken together, our results indicate that connected directors yielded little – or even negative – economic payoff to bank shareholders in pre-war Britain."
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Explorations in Economic History, Volume 59, January 2016-Richard S. Grossman, Masami Imai
04.01.2100
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Themes
Asia
Bonds
Bubbles and Crashes
Business Cycles Central Banks
China
Commodities Contrarian
Corporates
Creative Destruction Credit Crunch
Currencies
Current Account
Deflation Depression
Equity Europe Financial Crisis Fiscal Policy
Germany
Gloom and Doom Gold
Government Debt
Historical Patterns
Household Debt Inflation
Interest Rates
Japan
Market Timing
Misperceptions
Monetary Policy Oil Panics Permabears PIIGS Predictions
Productivity Real Estate
Seasonality
Sovereign Bonds Systemic Risk
Switzerland
Tail Risk
Technology
Tipping Point Trade Balance
U.S.A. Uncertainty
Valuations
Yield
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