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...

Motivated by agency theory, we investigate how a firm’s overall quality of corporate governance affects its dividend policy. Using a large sample of firms with governance data from The Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), we find that firms with stronger governance exhibit a higher...

Motivated by agency theory, we explore the effect of independent directors on corporate risk taking. To minimize endogeneity, we exploit the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as an exogenous shock that raises board independence. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that board independence...

We provide evidence on the effect of corporate governance on the extent of corporate risk-taking. Provided by the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), our governance metrics are among the most comprehensive in the literature. Our results show that firms with more effective governance...

Motivated by agency theory, we investigate the effect of board size on corporate outcomes. To address endogeneity, we exploit the variations in the director-age populations across the states in the U.S. We argue that firms with access to a larger pool of potential directors tend to have larger...

Corporate boards are responsible for ensuring that managers enact policies that are in shareholders' best interests, and managers are responsible for implementing strategies that are not only profitable, but responsive to changing legal and societal demands and the resource needs of the firm. In...

We explore the role of powerful CEOs on the extent of risk-taking, using Bebchuk, Cremers, and Peyer's (2011) CEO pay slice (CPS). Based on more than 12,000 observations over 20 years (1992-2012), our results reveal a non-monotonic association. In particular, relatively less powerful CEOs...

Motivated by agency theory, we explore how independent directors view managerial risk-taking incentives using a natural experiment. We exploit the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as an exogenous shock that raised board independence. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that independent...

We contribute to the debate on the costs and benefits of busy directors by investigating the effect of busy directors on firm value during a stressful time, i.e. during the Great Recession. Our results show that busy directors improve firm value significantly during the financial crisis. In...