We show that CEOs of prestigious firms earn less. Total compensation is on average 8% lower for firms listed in Fortune's ranking of America's most admired companies. We suggest that CEOs are willing to trade off status and career benefits from working for a publicly admired company against...

We examine completed M&A deals with large acquirer shareholder dollar wealth gains at announcement. We find that large-gain acquisitions are (i) typically “bolt-on” deals that are small relative to the acquirer's size; (ii) transaction-specific events (not firm- nor CEO-specific events);...

This paper explores whether corporate acquirers consider environmental reputations whenplanning and structuring takeovers. We find that firms with an environmentally toxic reputation,which have the greatest potential for negative spillovers to their merger partners, have a lowerassociated...

Using 636 large acquisition attempts that are accompanied by a negative stock price reaction at their announcement (“value-reducing acquisition attempts”) from 1990-2010, we find that, in deciding whether to abandon a value-reducing acquisition attempt, managers' sensitivity to the firm's...

This paper investigates how personal connections influencing governance in executive suites are impacted by other governance mechanisms. We use the independent board requirement as an exogenous shock reducing CEO influence in the boardroom. CEOs of the treated firms recoup the loss of influence...