We study whether CEO political ideology affected how S&P 500 firms reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic, an exogenous shock to demand and supply. We hypothesize that conservative CEOs are more likely to adopt shareholder-friendly than employee-friendly reactions to the pandemic. Hence, they should...

Exploiting the 2009 amendments to Regulation S-K, we provide unique evidence on the first-time disclosure of the reasons firms state for combining (separating) the roles of CEO and chairman. The stated reasons support both agency theory and organization theory. They are more numerous and...

While empirical studies that use event-study methodology find on average that the gains from mergers and acquisitions are positive, those focusing on accounting figures tend to find a significant drop in performance. We argue that each of the four possible combinations between positive or...

The first striking feature is that ownership of the average UK company is diffuse: a coalition of at least eight shareholders is required to reach an absolute majority of voting rights. Even though the average firm has a dispersed ownership, the reader should bear in mind that there are about...

This paper is the first study on the effects of pay–performance sensitivity (PPS) on the performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the presence of social ties and family ties of the top managers with board members. We find that both social ties and family ties increase PPS. In turn,...

There is a growing controversy as to the impact of private equity acquisitions, especially in terms of their impact on employment and subsequent organizational performance. It has been suggested that closer owner supervision and the injection of a new management team revitalize the acquired...

This paper studies the factors that influence the CEO succession decision in family firms whose incumbent CEO is a member of the controlling family. The sample includes all such firms from France, Germany and the UK. We propose a new measure of directors' independence, which adjusts for various...

The first striking feature is that ownership of the average UK company is diffuse: a coalition of at least eight shareholders is required to reach an absolute majority of voting rights. Even though the average firm has a dispersed ownership, the reader should bear in mind that there are about...

This paper contributes to the research on corporate governance by predicting the effects of European takeover regulation. In particular, we investigate whether the recent reforms of takeover regulation in Europe are leading to a harmonization of the national legislations. With the help of 150...

This paper analyses the evolution of ownership and control in German and UK IPOs. In a first stage we try to explain why the pre-IPO shareholders of some firms sell out whereas those of other firms do not. German IPOs are matched by size with UK IPOs to obtain a first sample and matched by...