Corporate Governance and Bank Performance: Evidence from Macedonia

Abstract

The role of banks is integral and significant to the economic development and private initiative of any country. Therefore, we can read different and opposing studies in economic literature about various bank corporate governance regimes and issues. Given the renewed attention on the corporate governance in banks with the global financial crises, this paper investigates the relevance of board size, board composition and CEO qualities in the Macedonian banks and their performance. Thus, the following paragraphs will elaborate on the development of hypotheses to test whether good corporate governance structure can contribute towards higher banks performance measured by Return on assets (ROA), Return on equity (ROE), Cost-Income ratio and Capital adequacy ratio (CAR). We find that board size is only positively related to the bank’s profitability measures by ROA. Further, the research indicates negative association between board independence and ROA and ROE. Also, the results stress that banks in Macedonia which is managed by powerful CEOs that hold this position for a longer period are more profitable than those with CEOs serving their first four-years tenure. In addition, it is important to highlight that our research findings and insights is different and more important than some other studies, both practical and theoretical, as the primary object of study is commercial banks from insufficiently explored financial system and developing economy.