Risk at the Top: Board Demographics, Political Affiliation, and Bank Risk-Taking in Indonesia

Aulia Keiko Hubbansyah; Yuli Ardianto; Muhammad Nuruddin Subhan; Darmanto Darmanto

doi:10.32535/ijabim.v11i2.4702

Risk at the Top: Board Demographics, Political Affiliation, and Bank Risk-Taking in Indonesia

Aulia Keiko Hubbansyah, Yuli Ardianto, Muhammad Nuruddin Subhan, Darmanto Darmanto

Abstract

Indonesia's heavy reliance on bank intermediation makes the demographic composition of bank boards a first-order governance concern, yet board-level determinants of risk-taking remain underexplored relative to structural factors. This study aims to identify which board characteristics systematically shift risk-weighted assets (RWA) among 46 banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, observed from 2015 to 2024, by comparing banks that experienced a board-composition change with matched banks that did not across a five-year event window. This quantitative, quasi-experimental study uses a difference-in-differences (DiD) design to examine how board age, gender, education, and political affiliation affect bank risk-taking in Indonesia. The DiD estimates show that a younger board (b = 4.53, p < 0.05), a higher share of female directors (b = 7.32, p < 0.05), and a higher share of politically affiliated directors (b = 9.27, p < 0.10) each raise risk-taking, while a higher share of directors holding master's or doctoral degrees lowers it (b = -6.26, p < 0.05). These findings indicate that bank risk-taking is shaped as much by who sits on the board as by organizational structure, offering regulators a demographic lens for strengthening governance oversight.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.32535/ijabim.v11i2.4702