This paper investigates whether and how various characteristics of CEOs and corporate boards are related to the severity of corporate governance problems within firms. The latter is proxied by private benefits of control, which we measure for dual class stock firms using the voting premium...

This paper provides empirical evidence consistent with the facts that (1) social networks may strongly affect board composition and (2) social networks may be detrimental to corporate governance. Our empirical investigation relies on a unique dataset on executives and outside directors of...

We explore the country-specific institutional characteristics likely to influence an individual's decision to become an entrepreneur. We focus on the size of the government, on freedom from corruption, and on 'market freedom' defined as a cluster of variables related to protection of property...

Building on the right-to-manage model of collective bargaining, this paper tries to infer union power from the observed results in wage setting. It derives a time-varying indicator of union strength and confronts it with annual data for Germany. The results show that union power was relatively...

This paper provides estimates of the union wage gap in Portugal, a nation until recently lacking independent data on union density at firm level. Having estimated nonlinear and linear estimates of the effect of union density on the wage gap, the next stage of the analysis seeks to account for...

This paper examines changes in unionization that have occurred over the last decade or so using individual level micro data on twenty seven of the thirty OECD countries, with particular emphasis on Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Micro-data is also used to model union...

Drawing on evidence from the United States and Germany, this paper offers a survey of the effects of worker representation (in unions and works councils) and innovative work practices on firm performance. The focus is on the growing links between these two historically separate literatures. The...

Using representative individual-level data from the first round of the European Social Survey fielded in 2002/03, this paper provides an empirical analysis of unionization in 18 countries of the European Union. We show that union density varies considerably in Europe, ranging from 84 per cent in...