We relate the agency issues inherent in management buyouts and in earnings management. Income-reducing earnings management occurs prior to management buyouts. When insiders own small amounts of stock, outside monitoring mechanisms such as institutional ownership and Big Six audit firms reduce...

This paper examines whether post-merger board composition affects the premiums paid to target shareholders. Using a sample of 207 stock-for-stock mergers from 1996 to 2004, we show that target merger premiums vary inversely with target director representation on the post-merger board. We also...

[enter Abstract Body]We use a sample of randomly selected CRSP-listed firms to explore the cross-sectional determinants of corporate board size. We find that the average number of directors on boards differs significantly across industries. Further evidence indicates that these differences are...

We find that the most common board size for US publicly-traded firms ranges from eight to eleven directors. Over time, small boards (seven or fewer directors), tend to increase their size, but large boards (12 or more directors), tend to shrink their size. This result suggests a significant mean...