Outside directors of public companies play a central role in overseeing management. Nonetheless, they have rarely incurred personal, out-of-pocket liability for failing to carry out their assigned tasks, either in the litigation-prone United States or other countries. Historically, as threats to...

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...

Outside directors of public companies play a central role in overseeing management. Nonetheless, they have rarely incurred personal, out-of-pocket liability for failing to carry out their assigned tasks, either in the litigation-prone United States or other countries. Historically, as threats to...

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...

We provide an overview of Indian corporate governance practices, based primarily on responses to a 2006 survey of 370 Indian public companies. Compliance with legal norms is reasonably high in most areas, but not complete. We identify areas where Indian corporate governance is relatively strong...

Credible causal inference in accounting and finance research often comes from “natural” experiments. These experiments can be exploited using several “shock-based” research designs, including difference-in-differences (DiD), instrumental variables based on the shock (shock-IV), and...

This online appendix contains additional results for Atanasov and Black (2018, The Trouble with Instruments: The Need for Pre-Treatment Balance in Shock-IV Designs (Trouble with Instruments). Part 1 of the Appendix provides an extended checklist for implementing shock-IV designs. Part 2...

Legal restrictions create a material delay between the announcement of a friendly acquisition of a public firm and the deal's final approval by target shareholders: a month for a takeover with a first step cash tender offer, longer for a merger. During this time target values may change, perhaps...

A strong securities markets rests on a complex network of supporting institutions that ensure that minority shareholders (i) receive good information about the value of a company's business, and (ii) can have confidence that a company's managers and controlling shareholders won't cheat them out...