This paper examines the impact of independent director busyness on firm value in a setting that addresses a key challenge that the board of directors is an endogenously determined institution. We use the deaths of directors and CEOs as a natural experiment to generate exogenous variation in the...

We find that the directorial labor market's ability to align the incentives of managers and shareholders depends on the aggregate level of investor protection in a country. If a country's corporate governance environment is strong and boards are likely to protect the interest of shareholders, a...

We find that the strength of countries' legal institutions can explain the ability of private firms to identify and terminate poorly performing managers. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that governance problems in private firms are ameliorated by strong institutions that reduce...