Abstract
This study examines the impact of the National Fiscal Stabilisation Levy (NFSL) on bank returns in Ghana using an event study approach. It also analyses banks' individual and systemic risks through z-score, value-at-risk, expected shortfall, and tail risk measures after NFSL's introduction. Results show that listed banks' returns and overall profits remain unaffected, though risk levels vary across banks. We recommend a bank tax that targets both profits and short-term borrowing to reflect differing risk exposures. Given banks' heavy investment in treasury securities, we also propose taxing such investments to encourage lending to households and businesses. A well-designed bank tax could provide a stable revenue source for Ghana, supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and financing green and socially sustainable projects. Specifically, we suggest a tax of 1% on total liabilities (excluding equity and insured deposits), 5% of pre-tax profits, or 1% of treasury investments, whichever is higher.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment |
| Early online date | 11 Nov 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 11 Nov 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Keywords
- Banks
- firm value
- risk
- sustainable development
- taxation