This paper examines the effects of say on pay (SoP) laws on CEO compensation, the portion of top management pay captured by CEOs, and firm valuation. Using a large cross-country sample of about 103,000 firm-year observations from 39 countries, we document that compared to our control group of...

Drawing upon the resource-based view, this study examines how political connections affect corporate diversification in an emerging economy. Data from a sample of 1,280 Chinese public firms over 2002–2005 show a strong positive relationship between political connections and corporate...

We examine a primary outcome of corporate governance, namely, the ability to identify and terminate poorly performing CEOs, to test the effectiveness of U.S. investor protections in improving the corporate governance of cross-listed firms. We find that firms from weak investor protection regimes...

This paper examines the stock price impact of 163 announcements of Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) investments. We document an average positive risk-adjusted return of 2.1 percent for target firms during two days surrounding SWF acquisition announcements. The announcement effect is both...

We examine a primary outcome of corporate governance, the ability to identify and terminate poorly performing CEOs, to test the effectiveness of U.S. investor protections in improving the corporate governance of cross-listed firms. We find that firms from weak investor protection regimes that...

Corporate governance can provide mechanisms to effectively monitor the use of derivatives. Using a sample of firms from 34 countries over the period 1990 to 1999, I find that firms with strong governance use currency derivatives for value-maximizing reasons as established by theory. On the other...

We investigate the impact of family blockholders on the firm's debt agency costs under different investor protection environments. On one hand, families--through their undiversified investments, inter-generation presence, and reputation concerns--can mitigate debt agency costs. On the other...

This paper examines the impact of the strength of governance on firms' use of currency derivatives. Using a sample of firms from 30 countries over the period 1990 to 1999, we find that strongly governed firms tend to use derivatives to hedge currency exposure and overcome costly external...

This paper examines the impact of currency derivatives on firm value using a broad sample of firms from thirty-nine countries with significant exchange-rate exposure. Derivatives can be used for managers' self-interest, for hedging or for speculative purposes. We hypothesize that investors can...