Employing as a quasi-natural experiment an unexpected judgment by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that raised the difficulty of shareholder litigation, we explore the effect of shareholder litigation rights on board gender diversity. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that an...

This study investigates how debt maturity structure is influenced by the strength of shareholder rights. The empirical evidence reveals an inverse relation between the strength of shareholder rights and debt maturity. We contend that managers of firms with weak shareholder rights eschew choosing...

Exploiting two novel measures of innovation efficiency and takeover vulnerability, we explore the effect of the takeover market on corporate innovation. Our results reveal that a more active takeover market stifles innovation considerably, consistent with the notion that managers tend to be...

This study investigates the impact of Delaware law on the composition and size of the board of directors. Our empirical evidence reveals that Delaware firms have smaller and more independent boards than their non-Delaware counterparts. Given that we find no value-premium for firms that...

Purpose – Theory suggests that the market for corporate control, which constitutes an important external governance mechanism, may substitute for internal governance. Consistent with this notion, using a novel measure of takeover vulnerability primarily based on state legislation, we...

Leveraging as a quasi-natural experiment the staggered passage of universal demand laws, which raise the difficulty of shareholder lawsuits, we examine the effect of shareholder litigation rights on ESG controversies. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that an exogenous decline in...

Prior research shows that firms tend to recruit directors from the geographically-proximate area. Due to a limited supply of qualified individuals in a given area, firms located in close proximity have to share a limited pool of talented individuals. As a result, the larger the number of firms...

Thailand was at the origin of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Our research seeks to understand what economic and political factors contributed to the collapses of Thailand's financial institutions during the crisis. The distinctive feature of our model is that it incorporates variables for...

This study investigates the associations among bank risk-taking, ownership concentration, and the recently proposed standard for capital stability (Basel III). Consistent with theory, the evidence shows that a rise in ownership concentration by one standard deviation increases the extent of...

Purpose: Exploiting a novel measure of innovation, we investigate whether independent directors improve innovation efficiency. This novel measure of innovation captures the extent to which the firm generates revenue from its R&D and is therefore more economically meaningful. We also employ a...