http://hdl.handle.net/1893/229 This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by Accounting and Finance staff and students. 2026-10-28T20:21:52Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38419 Title: Institutional dynamics and regulatory reform in Sub-Saharan African banking: evidence from ownership, governance, and Basel III implementation. Author(s): Hagan, Emmanuel Senior Abstract: Across three empirical studies, this thesis examines the institutional dynamics and regulatory reform in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) banking, focusing on ownership, governance and Basel III implementation. As corporate governance reforms and global prudential standards continue to reshape banking systems, understanding how such reforms operate within emerging market institutional contexts is increasingly important. The thesis therefore investigates how ownership structures, governance mechanisms, and regulatory reforms interact within SSA banking systems, characterised by persistent institutional weaknesses, regulatory heterogeneity and evolving financial markets. The first empirical study examines how different ownership structures—government, foreign, managerial, individual, and institutional ownership—affect bank performance and how these effects are conditioned by the broader business environment. The findings reveal mixed and sometimes counterintuitive patterns: institutional, foreign, and managerial ownership often reduce or fail to enhance profitability, suggesting that their expected governance benefits are constrained by weak legal and regulatory institutions. These demonstrate that ownership reforms cannot be assessed independently of the institutional and business environments in which banks operate. The second empirical study examines the effects of corporate governance practices, market discipline, and central bank supervision on the performance of listed and privately owned banks in SSA. Governance mechanisms have heterogeneous effects across the two groups. Board size, non-executive directors, female directors, and board committee structures exhibit stronger and more consistent associations with performance among listed banks, whereas private banks frequently demonstrate performance advantages associated with leaner organisational structures and greater operational adaptability. Domestic stock markets enhance transparency and discipline whiles Central bank independence improves private bank performance but reduces listed bank performance, and its interaction with governance committees can be counterintuitive when supervisory and internal oversight mechanisms are misaligned. The third empirical study investigates the effects of Basel III and related prudential regulatory reforms on banking efficiency and stability in SSA. The reforms initially reduce stability, profitability, and liquidity, consistent with short-term adjustment costs arising from stricter capital and liquidity requirements. Over time, improvements emerge in financial depth and efficiency, though gains in access remain uneven. Collectively, the three studies show that governance quality and regulatory outcomes in SSA depend fundamentally on institutional quality and business-environment conditions. The thesis contributes new evidence from an under-researched region and applies advanced panel-data and causal-inference methods to assess Basel III’s effects, demonstrating that governance and regulatory reforms must be contextualised within emerging-market institutional realities. 2026-02-26T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38349 Title: The Effects of Industry Peers’ Consistency on the Properties of Analysts’ Forecasts Author(s): Gross, Christian; Perotti, Pietro; Giansante, Simone; Lyu, Peiwei Abstract: In this paper, we empirically examine the effects of one specific characteristic that could facilitate earnings forecasting for sell-side financial analysts: the stability (consistency) over time of industry peers. We develop an accounting-based proxy for this, which we call industry peers’ accounting consistency (IPAC). First, we argue that a set of industry peers that is stable over time—with stability being linked to their accounting choices relative to the target firm—improves the accuracy of sell-side analysts’ earnings forecasts, because previously developed heuristics for identifying industry peers and forecasting earnings of target firms against their peers can continue to be used. Second, we conjecture that higher peer stability over time decreases the dispersion of sell-side analysts’ earnings forecasts because more obvious peer choices are available. Consistent with our expectations, we find that IPAC is significantly associated with higher accuracy and lower dispersion in analysts’ earnings forecasts. 2026-09-06T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38202 Title: Pedagogical inertia and asynchronous specificity: a heuristic model of post-covid teaching in higher education Author(s): Watson, Duncan; Webb, Robert; Cook, Steve Abstract: Our paper introduces a heuristic model to explain how the UK higher education sector’s rapid shift to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic may constrain subsequent pedagogical innovation. Adapting the asset specificity framework, first introduced in the 1980s, we develop the concept of asynchronous specificity, a form of pedagogical lock-in that arises when teaching materials and institutional practices become narrowly tailored to pre-recorded, non-interactive delivery modes. We argue that these covid-era adaptations, though necessary at the time, may have created structural and cognitive sunk costs that disincentivise research-informed pedagogical reform. Our model highlights the competing incentives facing academics, between compliance and innovation, and the institutional conditions under which innovation is more likely to be suppressed. While our approach is conceptual rather than predictive, our approach offers a diagnostic tool for understanding inertia in teaching practices and sets out an agenda for policy and professional development reforms. We conclude by arguing that unless emergency responses are critically reassessed, the sector may risk mistaking short-term coping strategies for long-term pedagogical progress. 2025-07-29T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38189 Title: The Effects of U.S. Monetary Policy Shocks on Portfolio Diversification Author(s): Huang, Rong; McMillan, David; Kambouroudis, Dimos Abstract: We investigate the impact of changes in U.S. monetary policy on portfolio diversification. We build four different types of portfolios, including a U.S.-only, a stock-bond (60/40) portfolio, an international diversified stock portfolio, and an asset diversified portfolio. Our assets include the S&P 500 index, a developed market index (MSCI EAFE), an emerging market index (MSCI EM), gold, oil, and U.S. 10-year Treasury notes (10-year T-Note). We provide the following evidence. First, U.S. monetary policy is a risk factor in these global asset markets. Second, the results demonstrate that these markets, except for the 10-year Treasury notes, are unlikely to react to anticipated monetary policy changes. Third, we suggest that risk-averse investors can use U.S. 10-year Treasury notes and choose the stock-bond portfolio to hedge risks when monetary policy is volatile, as we find that all stock indexes, gold and oil respond more to U.S. monetary policy surprises than 10-year Treasury notes. Fourth, all portfolios are negatively related to the monetary policy surprise, and we contend that U.S. monetary policy may be a systemic risk that cannot be fully diversified. 2026-07-12T00:00:00Z