We study the determinants of private benefits of control in negotiated block transactions. We estimate the block pricing model in Burkart, Gromb, and Panunzi (2000) explicitly dealing with the existence of both block premia and block discounts in the data. We find evidence that the occurrence of...

We show that country characteristics explain most of the cross-sectional variation in bank board independence. In contrast, country characteristics have little explanatory power for the fraction of outside bank directors with experience in the banking industry. Exploiting the time-series...

This study investigates the employment consequences of private equity acquisitions, in particular institutional buy-outs (IBOs), in the UK. It involves a pre- and post-acquisition analysis of employment and performance characteristics for a sample of acquired firms and a matched sample of...

In Italy, as in many other European countries, listed firms have gone dark through controlling shareholder-initiated tender offers. We find that the presence of institutional investors, especially when foreign, helps minority shareholders receive a higher takeover premium and reduces the...

This paper studies the two potentially contrasting effects on IPO pricing and post-IPO operating performance of family ties as well as social ties the top management has with board members. While family ties may solve manager-owner conflicts of interests, they may also give rise to...

We argue that a fundamental reason for the short term perspective of corporate executives is the short-term orientation of shareholders and financial markets that drive the performance benchmarks of CEOs. In our view, long-term committed shareholders can provide substantial benefits to the...

This paper estimates the effects of Say-on-Pay (SoP); a policy that increases shareholder “voice” by providing shareholders with a regular vote on executive pay. We apply a regression discontinuity design to the votes on shareholder-sponsored SoP proposals. Adopting SoP leads to large...

This paper studies mergers between competing firms and shows that while such mergers reduce the level of product market competition, they may have an adverse effect on employee incentives to innovate. In industries where value creation depends on innovation and development of new products,...

We study the impact of corporate networks on the takeover process. We find that better connected companies are more active bidders. When a bidder and a target have one or more directors in common, the probability that the takeover transaction will be successfully completed augments, and the...

This paper examines the link between firm performance, board structure and top executive pay. We use a panel of firms from the Portuguese Stock Market, where the institutional context differs markedly from the U.K. and U.S., but is very similar to most other European countries. The standard...