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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Keywords: board composition; bank ownership; systemic risk; financial crisis JEL classification: G01; G21; G32 Permanent repository link IntroductionCorresponding authorThe role of corporate governance in banking has been highlighted by academics as well as by regulators and policy makers (see e.g. Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, 2010;Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010). Many academic studies emphasize how flaws in bank governance played a key role in the performance of banks during the crisis (Diamond and Rajan, 2009;Bebchuk and Spamann, 2010, Beltratti andStulz, 2012). Since the 2007, an increasing number of proposals and initiatives have attempted to identify and mitigate these flaws revealed by the financial crisis (Kirkpatrick, 2009) aiming to promote better corporate governance standards in banking, while recognizing the special nature of banks when compared to other firms. On the other hand, the financial crisis revealed the dramatic impact of excessive risktaking behaviour of banks on the global financial stability, especially in terms of underestimated consequences of unregulated systemic risk-taking. As the literature has widely investigated poor or weak corporate governance as well as the increasing systemic nature of the banking sector as major causes of the crisis, to the best of our knowledge there is still a limited understanding of the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and banks' incentive to become more expose to systemic risk. As suggested by de Andres and Vallelado (2008), the aim of banking regulators to reduce the runs and their systemic consequences on the stability of the system might come into conflict with the main purpose of shareholders which is to improve the shareholders value by also increasing risk-taking. Taking on risks and tail and systemic risks, in particular, may enhance bank performance in the short run (i.e. by increasing the leverage), but it can cause significant damage to the institution and the whole system when such risks materialize (i.e. fire sales "effects"). During the global financial crisis, European banks exposed themselves to tail and systemic risks in various ways. Among others, the most recent literature has highlighted how European banks' exposures to tail risks in the form of shadow banking activities were later transformed into severe losses on the balance sheets (Acharya et al., 2013: Arteta et al., 2013).An increase in systemic and tail risks by large banks could be supported by the implicit too-big-to fail guarantee and the reduced market discipline (Acharya et al.,2010). In fact, it could be difficult, both for outsiders and insiders, to distinguish between risk-taking activities that generate high returns and those that offer high returns as compensation for taking tail risk through complex and opaque activities (Ellul and Yerramilli, 2013). In this context, the presence of a s...

This paper investigates whether gender-diverse boards can play a role in preventing costly bank misconduct episodes. We exploit the fines received by European banks from US regulators to reduce endogeneity issues related to supervisory and governance mechanisms. We show that greater female representation significantly reduces the frequency of misconduct fines, equivalent to savings of $7.48 million per year. Female directors are more influential if they reach a critical mass and are supported by women in leadership roles. The mechanism through which gender diversity affects board effectiveness in preventing misconduct stems from the ethicality and risk aversion of the female directors, rather than their contribution to diversity. The findings are robust to alternative model specifications, proxies for gender diversity, reverse causality, country and bank controls, and sub-sample analyses.

We examine the discretionary use of loan loss provisions during the recent financial crisis, when Euro Area banks experienced not only a negative effect on the quality of their loans and a reduction in their profitability, but were also subject to a new form of stricter supervision, namely the EBA 2010 and 2011 stress test exercises. Overall, we find support for the only income smoothing hypothesis and we do not observe any difference in listed banks’ behavior when compared to unlisted banks. Banks subject to EBA stress tests had higher incentives to smooth income only for the 2011 EBA exercise, when a larger and more detailed set of information was released. This may suggest an unwilled side effect that accounting setters and banking regulators and supervisors should account for

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the demand for goods and services worldwide. The combination of a public health emergency, economic distress, and misinformation-driven panic have pushed customers and vendors towards the shadow economy. In particular, dark web marketplaces (DWMs), commercial websites accessible via free software, have gained significant popularity. Here, we analyse 851,199 listings extracted from 30 DWMs between January 1, 2020 and November 16, 2020. We identify 788 listings directly related to COVID-19 products and monitor the temporal evolution of product categories including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), medicines (e.g., hydroxyclorochine), and medical frauds. Finally, we compare trends in their temporal evolution with variations in public attention, as measured by Twitter posts and Wikipedia page visits. We reveal how the online shadow economy has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the importance of a continuous monitoring of DWMs, especially now that real vaccines are available and in short supply. We anticipate our analysis will be of interest both to researchers and public agencies focused on the protection of public health.