The Effect of the 2007/2008 Financial Crisis on Enterprise Risk Management Disclosure of Top US Banks

We document the effect of the 2007/2008 financial crisis on the volume and the quality of enterprise risk management (ERM) disclosure in the annual reports of the largest US banks, and analyse its determinants. Using a content analysis approach of the annual reports form 10-K for the years 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, we find that the ERM disclosure is significantly and positively associated with the crisis, bank size, board independence, duality and significantly and negatively associated with profitability, leverage, and board size. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature by investigating the effect of the crisis on ERM disclosure in the US banking sector context, and gives an insight into the factors affecting risk disclosure practices during the financial crisis.