銀行的政治關聯對銀行風險的影響

The Effects of Political Connection on Bank Risks

既有研究指出企業具有政治關聯能為公司帶來益處，但也會產生成本與風險，目前在政治關聯對企業營運成果影響的文獻中，相對較少從銀行業的角度探討銀行若與政治人物或政黨有所連結會對銀行的風險產生什麼樣的影響。銀行在一國金融體系的發展與穩定性中扮演重要角色，一家銀行因政治關聯所產生的後果對於公眾的影響亦相對於非金融公司而言為廣泛且顯著，因此有必要從銀行業的角度來探究政治關聯對經營風險的影響。本文根據2006~2013年間臺灣地區公開發行銀行的資料，檢驗銀行業政治關聯與風險的關係。在政治關聯程度的衡量上，本文以銀行之董事會成員中是否出現現任或卸任立委或政府內閣官員來衡量銀行的政治關聯程度；在銀行風險指標上，以銀行的逾期放款比率、資本適足率、流動比率以及Z-score作為代理變數。部分實證證據發現銀行董事會成員中具政治關聯的比率愈高，銀行將傾向出現較低的流動比率以及較低的Z-score，表示較高的銀行董事會政治關聯程度，對應著較高的流動性風險與破產風險；銀行與國民黨政治關聯的比率愈高時，銀行傾向有較低的流動比率，銀行與民進黨政治關聯的比率愈高時，銀行傾向有較高的逾期放款比率與較低的Z-score即較高的破產風險。

This paper examines the linkage between bank's political connection and operating risk, based on data of public banks on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) through 2006~2013. While existing literature has mentioned that firm's political connection has benefit versus cost, the number of existing studies examining political influence on the business risk based on banking industry is rare. Bank plays a significant role in the development and stability of the financial system, how bank's board political connection affects bank risk forms the fundamental motivation of this research. This paper constructs three indicators for board bank's political connection. For each bank, we hand-collect whether incumbent and outgoing cabinet member or officer, legislator and government officers are also a board member. The first is a dummy such that if there is at least one member fits above description, it is equal to one, and zero otherwise. The second is the number of board member fits above description. Third, the number of board member fits above description divided by total number of director of a bank. Greater value of all three measures indicates greater degree of bank's political connection. On the bank's risk, we employ capital adequacy ratio, the nonperforming loan ratio, liquidity ratio and Z-score as four proxy variables. Multiple regression result shows that bank with greater degree of political connection tends to have low capital adequacy ratio, higher nonperforming loan ratio and lower Z-score, means that bank's political connection deteriorates soundness on capital adequacy, asset quality and higher bankruptcy cost. The cost of hiring politicians on the bank board outweighs the benefit in terms of greater risk. Interesting, political connection with DDP largely explains the PC-risk nexus.