On September 30, 2018, California became the first U.S. state to set quotas for women directors on corporate boards. The passage of this law resulted in a significant decline in shareholder value for firms headquartered in California. The decline in shareholder value is directly related to the...

We examine the value impact of independent directors nominated by activists (Activist IDs). Firms appointing Activist IDs experience larger value increases than firms appointing other directors, particularly when Activist IDs have private firm experience and when their nominators remain as...

We examine whether board demographic diversity enhances cognitive diversity (measured as director dissent in the boardroom) and monitoring. At the director level, we find that individual directors who are dissimilar relative to other board members in terms of tenure and experience are more...