The study examines the impact of board attributes, ownership structures and other bank-specific factors on bank risk-taking. Using a sample of 220 banks in 16 sub-Saharan Africa countries for the years 2007–2018, the findings of the study are fourfold. First, the findings indicate that independent directors who are financial experts reduce bank risk-taking. Second, the study finds that the number of board meetings has a negative impact on bank risk-taking. Third, the estimation results suggest that government and foreign ownership encourage banks to take more risks. Finally, the study observes that institutional shareholder ownership influence bank risk-taking negatively. We observe that an increase in the ownership stake held by long-term institutional investors is associated with a decrease in risk-taking. Furthermore, we show that the predicted relationships vary across different periods. The findings are robust to different types of endogeneities and alternative measures of bank risk-taking. The study concludes that different corporate governance characteristics have different implications for banks' risk-taking in the region. The findings have key policy implications for banking practitioners, regulators, and policy makers in the region.

该研究探讨了董事会属性、所有权结构和其他银行特定因素对银行风险承担的影响。该研究以 2007 年至 2018 年 16 个撒哈拉以南非洲国家的 220 家银行为样本，得出了四重结论。首先，调查结果表明，身为财务专家的独立董事减少了银行的风险承担。其次，研究发现董事会会议次数对银行风险承担有负面影响。第三，估计结果表明政府和外资所有权鼓励银行承担更多风险。最后，研究发现机构股东所有权对银行风险承担产生负面影响。我们观察到，长期机构投资者持有的股权增加与风险承担的减少相关。此外，我们表明，预测的关系在不同时期有所不同。研究结果对于不同类型的内生性和银行风险承担的替代衡量标准都是稳健的。研究得出的结论是，不同的公司治理特征对该地区银行的风险承担有不同的影响。研究结果对该地区的银行业从业者、监管机构和政策制定者具有重要的政策影响。