Corporate governance and risk disclosures in Nigerian banks

Abstract

Purpose: This study examines the impact of corporate governance on risk disclosures in Nigerian deposit money banks. Methodology: The study adopts the ex-post facto research design and employs secondary data generated from annual reports of a sample of fifteen (15) money deposit banks with data covering the period 2009–2018. The study used a combination of both bootstrapped ordinary least square (OLS-B) regression, fixed effects (FE) estimation, and quantile regression to examine the impact of corporate governance variables across the risk types and consistency of the results across methods. Findings: For Credit risk disclosures, the OLS bootstrapped (OLS-B) estimation reveals that the effect of board size (BDS) is insignificant and this also holds for the FE. The OLS-B shows board independence (BIND) is insignificant but significant for FE. The effect of board gender diversity (BGD) and institutional ownership (INSTOWN) is significant for OLS-B and FE. Finally, the effect of audit committee is significant for OLS-B but not significant for FE. In the case of Market risk disclosures-Index, BDS is significant for OLS-B but not insignificant for FE. BIND is not significant for both OLS-B and FE. For BGD is insignificant for OLS-B and similarly for FE. The effect of INSTOWN is significant for both OLS-B and FE. Finally, the effect of audit committee (AUDC) is significant for OLS-B though not significant for FE. The quantile regression results also provide unique and supporting outcomes. The study concludes that there are cases of significant differences between the OLS-B and FE results but on the overall, corporate governance is instrumental in improving corporate risk disclosures and hence the study recommends the need for stronger corporate governance systems in banks. Originality of the Study: Unlike other studies that make use of single estimation approach majorly panel regression and without paying attention to consistency of estimates, this study examines the effect of corporate governance on risk disclosure using a combination of both bootstrapped OLS-B regression, panel regression, and quantile regression to examine the consistency of the results across methods. Implication of the Study: The study provides insight into the extent to which corporate governance can be effective in influencing risk disclosures in Nigerian banks.