CEO Duality and Bank Tax Avoidance: The Moderating Role of Risk Committees - An International Evidence

This paper examines the influence of CEO duality on bank tax avoidance and whether the board-level risk committee moderates the relationship. Moreover, we examine whether two risk committees’ characteristics (size and meeting frequency) moderate the CEO duality-bank tax avoidance relationship. Based on 1540 bank-year observations of 152 unique banks across 32 countries from 2011 to 2021, we find that CEO duality positively relates to bank tax avoidance. More importantly, we find that the board-level risk committee and its structural characteristics (size and meeting frequency) mitigate the positive influence of the CEO duality on bank tax avoidance. Our findings remain robustly similar using an alternative sample. This paper broadens our knowledge about the role of the risk committee and its attributes on the CEO duality-bank tax avoidance relationship. The findings of this study help policymakers understand the benefits of establishing bank board-level risk committees.