Motivated by agency theory, we explore the potential impact of managerial entrenchment through staggered boards on dividend policy. The evidence suggests that firms with staggered boards are more likely to pay dividends and pay them more generously than do those with unitary boards. We also show...

We contribute to the literature on dividend policy by relaxing Miller and Modigliani's (1961) perfect capital market assumptions and incorporating a factor that has not been investigated before, i.e. variation in managerial ability. Based on more than 24,000 observations across over 20 years...

Theory suggests that religious piety is associated with greater risk aversion and more conservative financial policies. Returns to shareholders through dividends are much more certain than returns through capital gains expected to be realized far into the future. We hypothesize that religious...

Motivated by agency theory, we investigate the effect of board independence on dividend policy. We exploit as a quasi-natural experiment the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the associated exchange listing requirement, mandating firms to have a majority of independent directors. Our...

We explore how bond investors view corporate cash distributions through dividends and how that view influences corporate cost of debt. Explaining between 45 and 67 percent of variance in credit spreads at the time of issuance, our model reveals a non-linear association between dividend payouts...

Motivated by agency theory, this study investigates how staggered boards influence accounting discretion. The results indicate that staggered boards do affect accounting discretion. In fact, the impact of staggered boards on accounting discretion is substantially larger (about seven times...

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...

We explore how powerful CEOs view investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR). The agency view suggests that CEOs invest in CSR to enhance their own private benefits. On the contrary, the conflict resolution view argues that CSR investments are made to resolve the conflicts among...

The quiet life hypothesis posits that entrenched managers are well-insulated from removal and thus prefer to enjoy a quiet life, i.e. they tend to be less ambitious, avoid difficult decisions, and engage in less risk-taking (Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2003). We utilize the staggered board (or...

“Lucky” CEOs are given stock option grants on days when the stock price is the lowest in the month of the grant, implying opportunistic timing, severe agency problems, and poor corporate governance (Bebchuk, Grinstein, Peyer, 2010). We find that lucky (opportunistic) CEOs invest...