Prior work in emerging markets provides evidence that better corporate governance predicts higher market value, but very little evidence on the specific channels through which governance can increase value. We provide evidence, from a natural experiment in Korea, that reduced tunneling is an...

We use extensive hand collected surveys reporting governance practices of Brazilian firms in 2004, 2006, and 2009 to build a broad corporate governance index and analyze the evolution of corporate governance in Brazil and the association between governance and firm value. We find that corporate...

Much has been said recently about the risky legal environment in which outside directors of public companies operate, especially in theUSA, but increasingly elsewhere as well. Our research on outside director liability suggests, however, that directors' fears are largely unjustified. We examine...

We provide an overview of the corporate governance practices of Brazilian public companies, based primarily on an extensive 2005 survey of 116 companies. We focus on the 88 responding Brazilian private firms which are not majority owned by the state or a foreign company. We identify areas where...

Outside directors constitute a key component of most prescriptions for good governance of public companies. Given that outside directors are important corporate governance players, one is led to wonder what will motivate the individuals serving in this capacity to carry out their...

Settlements reached in 2005 in securities litigation involving Enron and WorldCom highlighted the financial risks faced by outside directors of public companies. We argue elsewhere that Enron and WorldCom, as instances where directors made damages payments out of their own pockets, are and...

Outside directors constitute a key component of most prescriptions for good governance of public companies. Given that outside directors are important corporate governance players, one is led to wonder what will motivate the individuals serving in this capacity to carry out their...

An important issue in evaluating corporate governance is how to measure it. In prior work on emerging markets, we have advocated measuring firm-level governance using country-specific indices, tailored to each country's laws and institutions. An alternate approach, used in commercial indices, is...