We examine dispersion in director characteristics within a board. Directors with different skills can augment the board's overall expertise and decision making flexibility, but they also face coordination problems. Empirically, the negative effect of dispersion on value prevails. To establish...

We study the costs and benefits of dispersion in directors' incentives and ability within corporate boards. Director incentive is measured by their ownership in the firm and number of outside directorships help by each director. Director ability is measured based on the experience of directors...

Empirical evidence on the relations between board independence and board decisions and firm performance is generally confounded by serious endogeneity issues. We circumvent these endogeneity problems by demonstrating the strong impact of the local director labor market on board composition....

This article reviews existing research on board diversity. What role does diversity of board members play in board governance, and how does it influence firm behavior and firm value? First, given the recent focus on board diversity among institutional investors and regulators, we present...

Recent surveys show that 24% of independent directors in Russel 3,000 firms have continuously served on their boards for fifteen years or more. Based on a sample of S&P 1500 firms over the period 1998-2012, we document strong positive effects on financial performance for firms with one, very...

We examine the impact of the social attachment through age similarity between the independent directors and the CEO on earnings management. Using changes in independent director composition due to director death and retirement for identification, we find that firms with the presence of the...