This paper studies SEC no-action letter decisions that determine whether companies can exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy statements. During the period 2007–2019, the market reacted positively when the SEC permitted exclusion, suggesting that investors viewed those proposals as...

This paper uses recent regulations that have required some companies to increase the number of outside directors on their boards to generate estimates of the effect of board independence on performance that are largely free from endogeneity problems. Our main finding is that the effectiveness of...

This paper develops a theory of how shareholder decision rights over policies and directors affect firm value. The model highlights the distinction between the right to approve and the right to propose. The right to approve is weak; the right to propose is impactful but can help as well as hurt...

Atanasov and Black (2015) (AB) analyzes potential limitations of empirical studies that use shock-based IV designs, focusing specifically on our article that studies the effect of board independence on firm value (Duchin et al., 2010). With regard to our study, AB raises three concerns with our...