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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of some corporate governance mechanisms on the market risk (stock price return and volatility, exchange rate) and on the exchange rate and Treasury Bill during the financial crisis. In order to better clarify the firms’ resistance to financial crises, the effect of exchange rate, Treasury Bill and the market risk are also considered. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a sample data of the SBF 120 on a panel of 99 French firms over the period between 2006 and 2015 divided into three sub-periods: the first sub-period, which covers the period between December 31, 2006 and December 31, 2009, was characterized by the outbreak of the subprime crisis. The second sub-period considers the sovereign debt crisis in Europe between December 31, 2010 and December 31, 2012. The last sub-period includes the post-crisis period (December 31, 2013 to December 31, 2015). The GARCH and BEKK models are used to capture the effect of volatility and conditional heteroskedasticity of both corporate governance and market risk. Findings The paper found that during the financial crisis (first sub-period, the sovereign crisis period), the high shareholders’ protection had a positive and significant impact on the stock market returns. Furthermore, the shareholders’ protection, the Treasury Bill, the institutional investors, the board’s size, had a negative and significant effect on the stock returns volatility. During the post-crisis period, the high protection and the board’s size had a negative and significant effect on the volatility of the stock returns. Research limitations/implications This result implies that during the financial crisis, the high shareholders’ protection played a role in increases the stock market return and minimized the stock return volatility. Practical implications This study helps in improving the legal protection of investors and helps managers, shareholders and investors to evaluate their investments. This study also provides implications for policymakers and legal environment in order to evaluate the importance of the current corporate governance frameworks in place. Originality/value This result implies that the institutional investors, as the results suggest, should follow the shareholders’ protection in all the countries to make decisions about their investments since the high shareholders’ protection increases the firm’s stock returns and decreases the stock return volatility.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the stock return volatility, the outside and the independent directors. Design/methodology/approach The volatility, as the dependent variable in the model, is measured by the standard deviation of annual stock returns. Concerning the independent variable is as follows: The chief executive officer (CEO) is a dummy variable denoting whether or not the chairman of the board holds the position of CEO. The INDD, which represents the independent directors, is measured according to whether the firm appoints independent directors, or by the ratio of independent directors. The FD, which represents the outside directors, is measured according to whether the firm appoints outside directors, or by the ratio of outside directors. In addition, the authors also add the following five control variables to the regression model: the certified public accountant refers to the auditor-related variables including the audit opinion and whether the firm has previously switched accounting firms. The performance (PER) represents the firm performance in terms of the relative return on assets (ROA). The turnover (TURN) is measured by the natural log of the total liabilities. The SIZE is measured by the natural log of the market value of equity, and the leverage ratio (LEV) is the firm’s debt ratio measured by the ratio of total. The TURN is measured by the natural log of the total liabilities. The SIZE is measured by the natural log of the market value of equity and the LEV is the firm’s debt ratio measured by the ratio of total debt to total assets. The sample comprises 89 firms listed on the SBF 120 index over 2006-2012. Findings Results reveal that the outside directors have a positive and significant effect on the stock return volatility. Moreover, the firm’s size and ROA have a negative effect on the stock return volatility, which is clearly evidenced in all the regressions. On the other hand, the CEO, audit size and debt ratio have statically significant and positive effects on the stock return volatility. Originality/value This study indicates the importance of corporate governance and helps investors and financial economists understand the behavior of the stock prices during a financial crisis. Although the existing studies refer to the influence of corporate governance on the stock prices during a crisis, none of these has ever discussed whether better corporate governance can help reduce the stock price volatility in such a situation.

In this paper, we examine the sensitivity of nonfinancial sector stock returns to the market, exchange rate risk, and interest rates in two nonfinancial sectors (technology and industry) in eight countries, including various European economies, the USA and China, over the period 2006-2009. We also test for the presence of causality-in-mean and volatility spillovers. The empirical results show that the stock market returns, interest rate, and exchange rate in most cases have a significant effect (positive and negative) during crisis. As for the three types of risk, these are found to play a role mainly in the industry sector. These empirical insights are in most cases of volatility spillovers occurring from market return to sectoral returns in the industry sector in European economies, though there are also some instances of the interest rate and exchange rate spillovers, both in Europe and in the USA, during the crisis.