Banking Risk:: Ownership Structure, Moral Hazard and Capital Regulation

This study examines relationship between ownership structure and moral hazard with risk taking of Malaysian banks and also investigates the moderating effects of capital regulation on these relationships. Bank risk taking in this study is measured by standard deviation of return on equity, standard deviation of return on assets and Z-SCORE. Ownership structure comprised of insider, family, government, institutional and foreign ownership. Moral hazard is proxied by loan growth and loan concentration while capital regulation is proxied by capital adequacy requirement. This study employs 294 observations over the period of 1990-2008. This study utilizes two regression tests; multiple regression and hierarchical moderated multiple regression. The results of this study provide new evidence on the study of bank risks especially in the developing country.