Using panel data from a sample of 535 banks from OECD countries for the 2004–2016 period, this paper examines whether the influence of banking regulation on banks’ risk is channeled through the level of investors’ protection. The banking regulatory factors we consider are activity restrictions, capital stringency and supervisory power. We find that the overall effect of banking regulation on banks’ risk is conditional on the level of investors’ protection and that investors’ protection plays the role of reinforcing each of these individual effects. Investor protection reinforces the positive effect of activity restrictions and capital stringency on banks’ risk and also reinforces the negative effect of supervisory power on this risk. These results are robust to a different estimation method and a different proxy for banks’ risk. Additional robustness tests reveal that some of the banking regulation effects are contingent on the banks’ size and the systemic banking crisis period.

本文使用经合组织国家 535 家银行 2004 年至 2016 年期间的面板数据，检验了银行业监管对银行风险的影响是否通过投资者保护水平来传导。我们考虑的银行监管因素包括活动限制、资本紧缩和监管权力。我们发现，银行监管对银行风险的总体影响取决于投资者保护的水平，而投资者保护则发挥着强化每一个单独影响的作用。投资者保护强化了活动限制和资本紧缩对银行风险的积极影响，也强化了监管权力对此风险的负面影响。这些结果对于不同的估计方法和不同的银行风险代理是稳健的。