This study describes the Indian corporate governance system and examines how the system has both supported and held back India's ascent to the top ranks of the world's economies. While on paper the country's legal system provides some of the best investor protection in the world, enforcement is...

We investigate the relation between corporate governance characteristics of hostile takeover targets and the choice to employ 'harmful' resistance that is not perceived as being motivated by shareholders' interests. We find that harmful resistance is associated with firms where managers have...

We inquire whether public opinion influences executive compensation. During 1992-2008 the negativity of press coverage of CEO pay varied significantly, with stock options being the most discussed pay component. We find that after more negative press coverage of CEO pay firms reduce option grants...

This paper reconsiders the issue of share price reactions to dividend announcements. Previous papers rely almost exclusively on a naive dividend model in which the dividend change is used as a proxy for the dividend surprise. We use the difference between the actual dividend and the analyst...

We study the decisions and performance of managers who are also chair of the board (duality managers). We hypothesize that duality managers take more risky decisions and deliver worse performance than non-duality managers due to reduced level of control and replacement risk. Using the mutual...

We find that corporate governance characteristics of acquiring firms (board ownership, board size, and block-holder control) have an economically and statistically significant impact on operating performance changes following mergers. We also show that dispersion of intra-board ownership stakes...

We provide evidence for a positive impact of CEO fitness on firm value (Tobin's Q). For each of the years 2001 to 2011, we define S&P 1500 CEOs as fit if they finish a marathon. Fit CEOs are associated with higher firm profitability and M&A announcement returns. Effects on firm value are...

We study the effect of the business cycle on optimal capital structure choice and the benefit to leverage. We propose a regime switching model with a state-dependent cash flow process to capture macroeconomic risk in a firm's cash flow. Our model is parsimonious but still realistic and allows...

Standard equity valuation approaches (i.e., DDM, RIM, and DCF model) are derived under the assumption of ideal conditions, such as infinite payoffs and clean surplus accounting. Because these conditions are hardly ever met, we extend the standard approaches, based on the fundamental principle of...