Three essays on the effects of regulation and supervision on the performance of European banks.

Summary This thesis is composed of three essays: the first and second essays deal with the effects of regulations and supervision on profitability and risk taking by European banks during the period 2005-2011. The results show that these effects depend not only on internal and external influencing factors, but also on the supervisory modality and the pace of implementation of financial regulations. We also find that the results change for each group of countries with common characteristics. This is explained by the impact of the European crisis as well as the sovereign debt crisis. However, the third essay studies the impact of banking governance mechanisms on the performance of large French banking groups during the period 2005 - 2011. Indeed, the results confirm that the ownership and managerial structure are different from one bank to another: institutional investors are an element of banking development and the managerial participation of employees reinforces the federative spirit. The larger the board of directors, the greater the conflict of interest and lack of coordination, and the more frequent the meetings and attendance of directors, the greater the financial stability. Our study of the impact of governance structure on performance, using random-effect panel data, confirms our findings. Indeed, the presence of institutional investors and employee ownership favor bank profitability, and the size of the board of directors and the independence of directors increase excessive risk taking. However, the study of the interaction between regulation, supervision and bank governance structure and their impact on bank performance confirms that the effects of regulation and supervision on bank performance depend on the managerial structure as well as the ownership structure of the bank.