Voluntary adoption of board risk committees and financial constraints risk

Abstract

To improve risk management processes, policymakers around the world have encouraged firms to invest in improving risk oversight and governance practices, such as adoption of a board risk committee (BRC). This paper examines whether adoption of a BRC improves a firm's access to capital by reducing financial constraints risk. Using a sample of 28,265 observations from listed firms in the U.S. from 2005 to 2017, we find voluntary adoption of a BRC significantly reduces financial constraints risk. This finding is robust to alternative proxies of financial constraints risk, accounting for sample selection bias and controlling for unobserved firm-level heterogeneity. We also find that BRC characteristics including size, financial experts and female directors are negatively related to financial constraints risk. In addition, we document significant indirect effects of BRCs on financial constraints risk through reducing information asymmetry and agency costs. In summary, the findings of this paper indicate that voluntary adoption of a BRC is important for listed firms without an effective risk governance structure at the board level.