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In this paper, we analyze whether regulation reduced risk during the credit crisis and the sovereign debt crisis for a cross section of global banks. In this regard, we examine distance to default (Laeven and Levine, 2008), systemic risk (Acharya et al., 2010), idiosyncratic risk, and systematic risk. We employ World Bank survey data on regulations to test our conjectures. We find that regulatory restrictions, official supervisory power, capital stringency, along with private monitoring can explain bank risk in both crises. Additionally, we find that deposit insurance schemes enhance moral hazard, as this encouraged banks to take on more risk and perform poorly during the sovereign debt crisis. Finally, official supervision and private monitoring explains the returns during both crisis periods.

This study examines public trust in government and public belief in its truthfulness in respect of the measures it is taking to combat COVID-19. Analysing global data from the International Coronavirus Survey of 178 countries between 20 March and 8 April 2020, we establish that integrated government response policies, underpinned by containment health measures and economic reliefs, are crucial to winning public trust and support. We find that a one standard deviation increase in composite government response measures leads to a 0.353% increase in public trust in government and a 0.414% increase in public belief in its truthfulness. The impacts vary according to legal systems, whose political ethos determines the quality of welfare services and their ability to respond to citizens' needs during a public health emergency. Further, public trust in government measures differs in relation to how a country's system of governance and institutional culture respond to meet public expectations, with citizens' attitudes influenced by the fairness, effectiveness and accountability of government agencies. Most importantly, our evidence consistently demonstrates that the provision of impartial, transparent and truthful government communications is vital for maintaining public trust. Moreover, experience gained from previous pandemics, reinforcing a nation's preparedness and responsiveness to future public health crises, is crucial to ensuring citizens' confidence in government competence. Overall, our original investigation reveals a contention between the exigencies of government policies and public expectations in a global health emergency, and has profound implications for public management and business and economic regeneration in the aftermath of the pandemic, laying the foundations for future research.

In this paper, we assess which firm-characteristics are associated with a firm's decision to announce a share repurchase programme in a cross-country framework. In the models, we incorporate firm-specific financial characteristics and measures of share price performance. We find that size, cash dividends, and ownership concentration consistently have a significant impact on share repurchase announcements in all three countries under study. However, the share price performance does not explain the decision to announce a share repurchase. The robustness of the proposed models is investigated across different dimensions of sample-matching methods and with a boot-strap technique. Finally, we construct a number of models with a robust predictive ability of a firm's likelihood to announce a share repurchas

An open market share buyback is not a firm commitment, and there is limited evidence on whether firms repurchase the intended shares. Unlike US studies, we use data from unique UK regulatory and disclosure environment that allows to accurately measure the share buyback completion rates. We show that information disclosure and CEO overconfidence are significant determinants of the share buyback completion rate. In addition, we find that large and widely held firms that conduct subsequent buyback programs and have a past buyback completion reputation exhibit higher completion rates. Finally, we assess whether other CEO characteristics affect buyback completion rates and find that firms with senior CEOs who hold external directorships and have a longer tenure as CEO are more likely to complete the buyback programs. In sum, our results suggest there is a clear relationship between information disclosure, CEO overconfidence, and buyback completion rates