The average cash-to-assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms more than doubles from 1980 to 2006. A measure of the economic importance of this increase in cash holdings is that at the end of the sample period, the average firm can pay back all of its debt obligations with its cash holdings; in...

We compare the governance of foreign firms to the governance of similar U.S. firms. Using an index of firm governance attributes, we find that, on average, foreign firms have worse governance than matching U.S. firms. Roughly 8% of foreign firms have better governance than comparable U.S. firms....

We examine the determinants of appointments of outside CEOs to boards and how these appointments impact the appointing companies. We find that CEOs are most likely to join boards of large established firms that are geographically close, pursue similar financial and investment policies, and have...