In cooperation with the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) publishes Working Papers in the Financial and Legal Series. The primary purpose of the two series is to publish research papers on corporate governance related topics that are authored or co-authored by ECGI Research Members. The complete Financial and Legal Series are available online.
More on how you can become an ECGI Research Member and have your papers published on the Institute website can be accessed on this link.
One of the recently published papers in the series is the one of Guido Ferrarini, professor at the University of Genoa and ECGI Member, Understanding the Role of Corporate Governance in Financial Institutions tacking the reform of corporate law for financial institutions.
As he argues: „the swinging of the pendulum between corporate governance and financial regulation may have gone too far, as a result of the ‘nirvana fallacy’ that often affects reformers; […] corporate governance should recover some of the lost grounds, possibly through spontaneous enhancement of the role of boards by financial institutions and cautious deregulation of the governance mechanisms by supervisory authorities”.
This paper scrutinizes how, after the 2008 financial crisis, most of the blame for the numerous bank failures has been attributed to corporate governance. Consequently, regulation and supervision have been enhanced to complement corporate governance of financial institutions and even to replace it, in more severe cases.
