We contribute to the literature on dividend policy by relaxing Miller and Modigliani's (1961) perfect capital market assumptions and incorporating a factor that has not been investigated before, i.e. variation in managerial ability. Based on more than 24,000 observations across over 20 years...

Motivated by the debate on gender inequality, we study CEO gender and CEO age. Because women face significantly more obstacles in advancing their careers, it may take them longer to reach the top position, i.e. the chief executive officer (CEO). If this is the case, female CEOs should be older...

We explore how co-opted directors affect dividend policy. Co-opted directors are those appointed after the incumbent CEO assumes office. Our results show that co-opted directors lead to a weaker propensity to pay dividends and, for dividend-paying firms, significantly lower dividend payouts. We...

Motivated by agency theory, we explore the effect of independent directors on corporate risk taking. To minimize endogeneity, we exploit the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as an exogenous shock that raises board independence. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that board independence...

Motivated by agency theory, we explore how powerful CEOs influence the extent of stock price informativeness. Using idiosyncratic volatility to measure stock price informativeness, we find that firms with more powerful CEOs experience a more opaque information environment. This is consistent...

We use agency theory to explore how analyst coverage is influenced by the managerial entrenchment associated with the staggered (or classified) board. The empirical evidence suggests that firms with staggered boards attract significantly larger analyst following. We also document that firms with...

We explore the role of female directors in mitigating CEO luck. CEOs are “lucky” when they receive stock option grants on days when the stock price is the lowest in the month of the grant, implying opportunistic timing. Our results show that board gender diversity significantly deters the...

We examine how CEO power affects the extent of analyst coverage. CEO power may influence the CEO's incentives to disclose information. The amount of information disclosed by the firm in turn influences the information environment, which affects the financial analyst's incentives to “cover”...

We relate impression and earnings management to the field of ethnostatistics, the study of how statistics are produced and managed. By further linking impression management and agency theory, we show that earnings management may exacerbate agency problems. We hypothesize that earnings-increasing...

We explore how powerful CEOs view investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR). The agency view suggests that CEOs invest in CSR to enhance their own private benefits. On the contrary, the conflict resolution view argues that CSR investments are made to resolve the conflicts among...