Over 74% of US banks share common ownership with other banks. Our analysis of a large sample of US banks reveals that those with greater common ownership demonstrate heightened transparency. This manifests as reduced discretion in loan loss provisions, improved financial statement readability, and enhanced comparability. We pinpoint three underlying mechanisms: decreased private information gathering, increased stock liquidity, and diminished managerial incentives for opacity. Furthermore, these commonly owned banks exhibit lower crash risk due to their improved transparency. Our findings hold after using various proxies and two endogeneity-reduction methods: a difference-in-differences analysis based on the 2009 Blackrock–Barclays Global Investors merger and an instrumental variable approach using Russell 2000 index inclusions. Overall, our study underscores the positive impact of common ownership in the banking sector.

中文翻译：

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共同所有权的光明面：来自银行透明度的证据


超过 74% 的美国银行与其他银行拥有共同所有权。我们对大量美国银行样本的分析表明，拥有更多共同所有权的银行表现出更高的透明度。这表现为贷款损失准备金的自由裁量权减少、财务报表可读性提高以及可比性增强。我们指出了三个潜在机制：私人信息收集减少、股票流动性增加以及不透明的管理激励减少。此外，这些共同拥有的银行由于透明度提高而表现出较低的崩溃风险。我们的研究结果在使用各种代理和两种内生性降低方法后仍然成立：基于 2009 年贝莱德与巴克莱全球投资者合并的双重差分分析和使用罗素 2000 指数纳入的工具变量方法。总体而言，我们的研究强调了共同所有权对银行业的积极影响。