Motivated by agency theory and arguments from linguistic studies, we argue in this paper the internationalization of a firm’s audit committee to be associated with weaker firm-level corporate governance. Based on 2,015 publicly traded European firms from 16 countries over 2000-2018, we find...

Motivated by agency theory and arguments from linguistic studies, we argue in this paper the internationalization of a firm's audit committee to be associated with weaker firm-level corporate governance. Based on 2,015 publicly traded European firms from 16 countries over 2000-2018, we find the...

Boards hire and fire CEOs based on imperfect information. Using comprehensive data on 28 cohorts in Sweden, we analyze the role of a potentially important attribute—CEO health—in corporate governance. Boards hire CEOs who are healthier than other high-skill professionals, in particular in...

Venture capital has become a dominant form of innovation finance, used by many high-tech startups. Europe lags the U.S. in both VC activity and the creation of successful startups, and has recently been surpassed by China. Few European countries have rates of VC activity commensurable to their...

In some classes of models, taxes at the owner level are "neutral" and have no effect on firm activity. However, this tax neutrality is sensitive to assumptions and no longer holds in more complex models. We review recent research that incorporates greater complexity in studying the link between...

One response to uncertainty and transactions costs in VC-finance is to compensate founders (and other key personnel) with stock options under complex contracts. Entrepreneurs are granted stock options contingent on firm performance, vesting and other criteria. While most countries tax stock...

Private foundations became a vehicle for the corporate control of large listed firms in Sweden during the post-war era, but in the 1990s, they were replaced by wealthy individuals who either directly own controlling blocks or who own them through holding companies. We study potential...

We study shareholder support for corporate board nominees before and after the 2018 California gender quota. Pre-quota, new female nominees received greater support than new male nominees, consistent with women being held to a higher standard. Post-quota, as the number of women increased,...

Boards hire and fire CEOs based on imperfect information. Using comprehensive data on 28 cohorts in Sweden, we analyze the role of a potentially important attribute—CEO health—in corporate governance. Boards hire CEOs who are healthier than other high-skill professionals, in particular in...

Despite the global reach of their commercial activities, many multinational firms have proved slow in internationalizing their boards of directors. Based on a panel study of the internationalization of the boards of 347 non-financial firms from the Nordic countries, we find a higher fraction of...