2010年-世界发展银行全球_Banking_on_Politics_46页_515kb

Summary: Banking on Politics – When Former High-ranking Politicians Become Bank Directors

Core Content

This article investigates the phenomenon of former high-ranking politicians becoming bank directors in various countries. It presents new data and analysis to explore the implications of such political connections on the banking sector and broader economic development.

Main Viewpoints

• Political Connectedness in Banking: Politician-banker connections are relatively rare but show strong correlations with bank and institutional characteristics.
• Positive Outcomes for Politically Connected Banks: These banks tend to be larger, more profitable, less leveraged, and less risky compared to unconnected banks.
• Negative Correlation with Economic Development: At the country level, higher levels of political connectedness are associated with lower GDP per capita, suggesting that such connections may hinder economic growth.
• Institutional Weakness and Government Power: The phenomenon is more prevalent in countries with weaker institutions and less accountable governments, where banks are more likely to be influenced by political interests.
• Regulatory Capture and Banker-Friendly Policies: In these countries, bank regulation is more favorable to bankers, and the financial system is less developed.
• Public Interest vs. Private Interests: The article challenges the notion that political connections in banking are purely beneficial, arguing that they may have significant social costs, such as restricted credit access.

Key Information

Data and Methodology

• A new dataset was compiled, linking over 10,000 politicians (cabinet members, regulators, and central bank governors) with bank board members from 4,618 banks across 154 countries.
• Names were standardized, duplicates removed, and matches identified using a combination of string similarity measures (bigram, Levenshtein, and longest common subsequence).
• Matches were visually verified to ensure accuracy.
• The dataset covers the period 1996–2005 for politicians and December 2005 for bank directors.

Aggregation of Connectedness

• Five metrics were used to measure connectedness at the country level:
  1. FRACBANKS: Proportion of banks with a politician on their board.
  2. SHAREASSETS: Share of assets controlled by politically connected banks.
  3. FRACBANKERS: Proportion of bank directors who are former politicians.
  4. PREVALENCE: Number of former politicians serving on bank boards.
  5. MAXSHARE: Maximum share of assets controlled by a single politician on a bank board.

These metrics were computed for both all banks and fully private banks.

Findings

• The share of bankers who are former politicians is small (around 0.34% on average).
• Politically connected banks perform better in terms of size and profitability but are less leveraged and less risky.
• At the country level, political connectedness is strongly negatively correlated with GDP per capita.
• Countries with higher connectedness tend to have higher levels of corruption, stronger government regulatory power, and lower accountability.
• Bank regulation is less market-friendly and more pro-banker in these countries.
• The financial system is less developed in countries with higher connectedness.
• The presence of former politicians on bank boards is used as a proxy for broader political connections in the financial sector.

Interpretation

• The article suggests that political connections in banking are more likely to reflect private interests rather than public interest.
• These connections may lead to regulatory capture, where banks influence regulation in their favor.
• The analysis implies that the banking sector is not neutral in its development and is shaped by political influences.
• The results are consistent across different metrics and datasets, supporting the empirical validity of the findings.

Conclusion

The study highlights the importance of political connectedness in shaping the financial sector and raises concerns about the implications for economic development and institutional quality. It underscores the need for further research and policy attention to ensure that financial institutions operate in a fair and transparent manner, free from undue political influence.