Little evidence exists on whether boards help managers make better decisions. We provide evidence that strong and independent boards help overconfident CEOs avoid honest mistakes when they seek to acquire other companies. In addition, we find that once-overconfident CEOs make better acquisition...

Casual observations suggest that bidder managers sometimes pay more than the economic value of target in mergers and acquisitions. This paper provides two empirical findings associated with overpayments in acquisitions among publicly traded U.S. firms during the period of 2003-2011 using the...

We analyze the relation between insider trading and the networks of executive and non-executive directors in UK listed companies. While most existing studies focus on firm-specific private information, we find that non-firm-specific information - such as information on other companies and...

Managerial compensation theory proposes that both equity- and debt-type compensation should be included in the optimal compensation contract in order to align managers' interests with those of both shareholders and debtholders of the firm. However, this reasoning also suggests that the two forms...

These slides summarize a paper on opportunism by corporate insiders. We show that opportunistic insiders can be identified through the profitability of their trades prior to quarterly earnings announcements (QEAs), and that opportunistic trading is associated with various kinds of...

This paper investigates market reaction to, and insiders’ trading around, CEO succession events. Investors seem to react negatively to CEO resignation, but not to CEO retirement or death. Further, while investors do not react negatively to CEO turnover in high effective firms, their reaction...

Using a novel dataset containing U.S. companies’ regular board meeting schedules, we find evidence of informed trading by outside directors prior to board meetings. In the days prior to board meetings, when outside directors possess private information, they make purchases that yield higher...

Prior research finds that online social media usage may lower self-control and encourage indulgent behavior in laboratory subjects. We find that corporate CEOs show similar tendencies: CEOs with online social media presence are more likely to succumb to lower self-control and abuse their...

Theories of corporate boards assume that board members of a firm generate private information about the quality and performance of its CEO in the process of monitoring and advising him, and may use this information to decide whether or not to fire him. In this paper, I make use of data on...